Squirreled Cyclocross Champion

Everyone seems convinced that Wout van Aert is on the Belgian version of The Masked Singer

Photo Credit: Alex Broadway, ASO

Oh yeah, it’s the offseason for sure.

Here’s the big cycling news of the week: The Belgian version of The Masked Singer recently brought out a unique character. In contrast to the rest of the competing costumed celebrities on the show, the Squirrel—or Eekhoorn, as it’s known in Dutch¹—could only make it to one taping, due to his busy schedule.

And everyone’s pretty convinced that the man in the squirrel costume is Wout van Aert. Obviously, the panel gets hints as to the identity of each singer, because I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect the Flemish equivalent of Ken Jeong to know what Wout van Aert’s singing voice sounds like. These hints included a rainbow jersey, presumably alluding to van Aert’s cyclocross world championships, and the fact that the Eekhoorn has two young children.

Now I find the central conceit of The Masked Singer to be simultaneously risible and fascinating. Because on one hand, I don’t care which B-List has-been² is giving me 85 percent of what you could get out of half a Charlie Puth³ song. But I love finding out that famous people have a hidden talent other than the one that got them where they are, and musical ability is my favorite kind of hidden talent.

So I’m all-in on Dana Barros’s brief rap career.

When Pittsburgh Pirates reliever Steven Brault—who was a vocal performance major in college⁴—put out an LP of Broadway covers, I listened to it so much the song from Dear Evan Hansen ended up on my Spotify Wrapped.

Obviously, The Masked Singer is no stranger to athlete cameos, and they’re all great. Tony Hawk sounded exactly like you’d expect Tony Hawk to sound. They screwed up by getting Barry Zito on and not having him do a Jason Mraz cover. Snowboarding legend Chloe Kim fuckin smoked the best Rihanna song.

Here are my two favorite athlete-on-The Masked Singer performances. One was Eagles tackle Jordan Mailata, who’s probably my favorite athlete in any sport right now. He’s a 6-foot-8 Australian who had never played organized football before joining the NFL’s international program, and now he’s a Pro Bowler, and also he has golden pipes.⁵

Like, tell me the Thingamabob isn’t doin’ it for you. Especially now that you know this monster with a velvet heart is actually an Australian giant who pushes people for a living.

My other favorite is Eric Thames, who you probably know as the muscular first baseman for the Brewers in the late 2010s.⁶ Well, just before that, Thames went to play in South Korea, where he became a regular 40-home run hitter, and incidentally a contestant on The King of Mask Singer. In addition to belting dingers, he can belt Stevie Wonder.

Anyway, back to the original question: How did Wout van Aert (presumably) sound?