With his new deal with Wout Van Aert and Jumbo-Visma, he will reportedly be among the top 10 highest earners in the pro peloton, and the Belgian has comparable ambitions, with the Classics, Tour de France, and Olympics to be held in Belgium in the 2021 season, World Championships confirmed that they will target.

After spending a week at the Jumbo-Visma training camp in Spain, Van Aat returned to Belgium for a weekend of cyclocross before the World Championships in Ostend next week.

Van Aert's contract was due to expire at the end of 2021, but after two stage wins at the Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo, and Tour de France in 2020, two silver medals at the road world championships, and a second place at the Tour de Flanders, the Dutch team continued to wear the yellow and black uniforms in what was to be the best year of his career.

Ineos Grenadiers and other teams were said to have expressed interest in Van Aert, but he preferred performance and loyalty over millions of dollars.

"It's like me all of a sudden laying on the beach. I don't intend to do that. It remains very ambitious," he told the Belgian newspaper Nieuwsblad when word got out that he had won the lottery with his new contract.

"It's a very good contract, but it's also something I won through my performance. My salary is in line with the market."

Nieuwsblad quoted salaries from a recent L'Equipe report, suggesting that Van Aat earns between Peter Sagan's €5 million annual salary and Ineos Grenadiers' Richard Karapas' €2.1 million. He also appears to get a series of big win bonuses, earning about €10,000 for every cyclocross race he rides, as well as income from private sponsors such as Red Bull.

"It was very easy to stay with this team," he said. The last season proved that this team suits me and I became a better rider."

"I wanted to stay, but there were financial problems and it took some time, but it finally happened. I'm really happy because I have four more years."

"I could have signed a four-year contract in 2019. But I thought that was too long. I didn't know the team and I didn't know if it would work out. Now that uncertainty is completely gone. It's great to have certainty for this long. My best season is yet to come."

2021 could theoretically be an even better year than 2020 for van Aat. After next week's cyclo-cross World Championships against Van der Pol, he will focus on road racing and his three-peak season.

"There's a lot going on, but ...... It's just a normal season for me," he joked after years of combining cyclocross, road racing, and the big goal of every season.

"After the World Cross Championships, I'll switch to road preparation, and from Strade Bianche to Paris-Roubaix it will be mainly one-day races; I'll also be competing in my first Tirreno-Adriatico (as a GC rider), which I'm really looking forward to."

"After the spring, I'll take a break and prepare for the Tour de France. The last block will be for the World Championships, which will also be held in Belgium."

Van Aert hopes to win as many different races as possible during his career and cross off his huge bucket list of major victories.

"I want to be versatile. 'My goal is to win as many different races as I can. I've won bunch sprints and time trials, and in the future I want to win short stage races, and I think I'm the type of rider who could one day win the green race (of the Tour de France).

"For me, it's more special to win all these things than to win five of the same races, because when you win one, you want to focus on what you don't have, and I think that's what I'm going to do. Therefore, the green jersey will be one of our main goals for the next few years."

Jumbo Visma has apparently agreed to give Juan Art the freedom and support to go after the green points jersey at the Tour de France: Primoš Roglic, Tom Dumoulin, and Steven Kruijswijk.

While van Art prefers to have multiple goals, with the Olympics coming up a week after the Tour de France, his only goal next year may be the green jersey.

"The green jersey is not easy to get," he said.

"In 2021 I want to focus on stage wins and hopefully the first yellow jersey (the uphill finish to Landernau in Brittany)... The Tour with its three time trials will also prepare me for the Olympics, where time trials are a major goal... My goal for 2022 It could be green. Let's see how the Olympics go."