2021 Olympic gold medallist Richard Carapaz has been forced to withdraw from the Road World Championships due to a family emergency and has instead returned home to South America.
Considered an outside favourite for the road race next Sunday, Carapaz explained in a message on his personal website that he has had to pull out because his daughter had to have an emergency operation.
The operation was successful but as the 2021 Olympic road champion said, "she still needs care and due to this family emergency, I have not been able to train for several days and my form is not at the level that Ecuador deserves, neither physically nor mentally."
"For this reason, I have decided not to participate in the World Championships in Zurich."
Carapaz's early exit follows the withdrawal of another top Ecuadorian rider, Jhonatan Narváez, last week, who is reportedly still suffering from the aftereffects of catching COVID-19.
Like Carapaz, Narváez was seen as a dark horse for Sunday's road race, particularly as he was one of the few riders able to outduel leading rainbow jersey favourite Tadej Pogačar this year, on the opening stage of the Giro d'Italia.
Carapaz finished fourth in the Vuelta a España earlier this month, a result he celebrated as his first major GC success in a Grand Tour since taking third in the 2021 Tour de France, and which he followed up that summer with a notable solo Olympic victory - also ahead of Pogačar, who took bronze.
His noted climbing skills and predilection for long-distance breakaways, most recently exhibited in an 80-kilometre solo move in the ultra-mountainous stage 9 of the Vuelta, made Carapaz a natural outsider for Zurich's rugged course.
Ecuador will now have to base their hopes on a trio of former National Road Champions: Jefferson Alveiro Cepeda, his cousin Jefferson Alexander Cepeda and Jonathan Caceido, the latter also a stage winner in the Giro d'Italia on Mount Etna back in 2020.
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