Wout van Aert leaves 2023 Tour de France to be with pregnant wife | Cycling on NBC Sports

Chapeau, Wout! There's always another Tour, family is more important

He did his job for this year. The guy honestly has the capability in my opinion to be a GC contender if he got the right team around him

I understand why we have to state that the yellow Jersey being essentially locked let’s him do it like this but hopefully his team would have been equally behind it even if the race was still a 10 second difference. Sports are great and all but at the end of the day it’s a glorified game for spectators and there are certain things that happen only once in life and the birth of your kid is one of them. He’s not paid an hourly wage struggling to make ends meet so taking time to be with his family is well within his rights.

Jonas is completely going to win so Wout did his job

Great. Congratulations to him.

This dude is capable to win any major race

Good for him!

Might explain why WVA elected to not contest the green jersey competition this year. He and his team knew all along that there was good chance he'd not be finishing this Tour.

Wout was seen leaving on his large magic carpet.

He had to leave. And the team didn't just LET him go..... they surely TOLD him he had to go.

Because in this new world of disturbed, angry, vengeful keyboard warriors, if she had gone into labor without him at her bedside, both he and Jumbo-Visma would have been deluged with an onslaught of ignorant, mysogonist, woke criticism.

The cost to him and his sponsors would be FAR worse than any benefit of him remaining in the race --- which is quite substantial

Abandon your teammates? How classy

Just pull out next time dude.

The announcer who criticized Wout leaving was rude and diminished a woman giving birth, that she could do it on her own and doctors would be present. We are always told that this is a team sport and his team supported him, why should you question it? Wout is putting his family first, after doing his job, I applaud him and shame on you for thinking you know better, your arrogance is appalling. Congratulations to Sarah and Wout!! Shame on you commentator.

He could’ve won on the Champs-Elysées.

Wout is Waooo! such an amazing Cyclist! well deserved Van

Then why even bother.

Congratulations on the decision and the birth of your son

The man paid his dues

Well it’s not the first time a person got in the way of an athlete this year.
That being said, congratulations and good for him!

What a great man!

Jumbo and Jonas will do just fine in last flat stages.

Congratulations to Wout. I hope the kid and mother have an easy and healthy birth. I look forward to seeing him do the Tour again next year.

Congratulations Wout on your new baby as well as doing such an amazing job during the tour!! I enjoyed watching you crush out there.

Sounds like the team just doesn’t need Wout anymore…

What none of the TV people said or got right: Wout’s decision was right and admirable whether his team needed him or not! Nobody goes to their deathbed wishing they’d been there for their team instead of their child’s birth.

This was really well said on everyone’s parts and I think brought up all the important points! Happy for the guy.

Is this a make good for Bob Roll’s awful comments during the live broadcast?

He's done his job ... and done it better than anyone.

Job done, family time

Well, this is his job. And just like any other job would let him take leave for his sons birth, jumbo did also. The person that this will truly impact, is me, cause i want him in the race. But, ill get over it

Umm excuse me my country is on fire right now....