Wout van Aert has been ruled out of Omloop Nieuwsblad with illness, delaying his season start, his team revealed on Thursday.
The Visma-Lease a Bike star was set to make his comeback to racing on Opening Weekend, but will now take time to recover; he will be replaced by Pietro Mattio. He is also on the start list for Le Samyn, on Tuesday, but it is not known if he will be back to health in time.
"Obviously it’s a big blow for me to miss out on my first race, having prepared for the Classics season the whole winter," Van Aert said. "We had a good training camp at Sierra Nevada and I was feeling really strong. But unfortunately, it’s also that time of the year where it’s easy to fall ill. I remain positive about the feeling I had on training and am confident that I will be able to return to racing soon. Just not this Saturday."
It is the latest setback for both Visma-Lease a Bike and Van Aert. Their GC leader Jonas Vingegaard was forced to delay his season start after illness, and this was set to be Van Aert's first event back since he fractured his ankle after crashing in a cyclo-cross race in January.
Misfortune has dogged the Belgian at the Classics in recent years, with crashes, illness and injuries either ruling him out of races or damaging his chances. He is due to continue his season at Strade Bianche, next Saturday 7 March, but potentially not at 100%.
It means there will be no duel between Van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech), which was expected after the latter was revealed to be racing yesterday. The start list for the men's WorldTour race still contains multiple big names beyond Van der Poel, including Tom Pidcock (Pinarello Q36.5), Biniam Girmay (NSN Cycling) and Arnaud De Lie (Lotto Intermarché).
Visma-Lease a Bike will look to Frenchman Christophe Laporte and young Briton Matthew Brennan for Omloop and also Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, which takes place on Sunday.
