The Belgian road champion, who will be one of the favorites for the solo effort at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, covered the 30.9 km of the course traced in the middle of the vines in 35'53 ”to win with 21 seconds on Kasper Asgreen and 32 seconds on another Dane, Jonas Vingegaard, his team-mate and revelation of this edition.
The yellow jersey Tadej Pogacar, who had a large lead in the general classification, did not force his talent and was content to avoid the glitches by finishing 8th, at 57 ”.
To discover
The general classification of the Tour de France
The general classification
In the general classification, almost unchanged, before the last stage between Chatou and the Champs-Élysées, the Slovenian keeps 5'20 ”ahead of Jonas Vingegaard and 7'03” over Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz.
Barring an accident, the defending champion will retain his title in Paris on Sunday.
The victory of Van Aert, the third of his team on this Tour with that captured by Sepp Kuss in Andorra, crowns a good overall performance of the Jumbo-Visma formation, however reduced to four elements after the retirement of half of its runners, including its leader Primoz Roglic.
Tour de France: Wout Van Aert crushes the stopwatch, Tadej Pogacar will be crowned Sunday
“Winning a Tour de France time trial was one of my career goals and I'm very happy to end the Tour that way. It was a very fast course, a route more suited to my size. It's a great Tour for our team, even if we weren't here for it. I am very proud of what the four of us managed to do ”, summed up Wout Van Aert at the finish line.