Not only Wout van Aert has suffered a setback: how is Christophe Laporte after his heavy crash?

First came the crash of German rider Nikias Behrens, who had been pencilled in for Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne and Le Samyn. Behrens — the U23 world champion from 2024 — went down in the final week of the team’s altitude camp in Sierra Nevada and broke his collarbone.

At midday on Thursday, the team had to confirm Van Aert’s absence from Omloop. “It’s obviously a big disappointment that I have to miss my first race, after training all winter for the classics season. We had a good training camp in Sierra Nevada and I felt really strong. But unfortunately it’s also that time of year when you can get sick easily.”

CEO Richard Plugge was first up to address the news in Deerlijk. “Sad news, especially for him,” he said. “He did everything right, invested a lot of time into training, and unfortunately he’s not here because of illness. Everyone knows someone with the flu, and unfortunately he’s got it too. I’m trying to look at the positive side: the sun is shining and the important races are in a few weeks. Grischa, you can explain it one more time.”

Enter Grischa Niermann. “It’s shit,” he concluded. “And bad timing, especially for him. We hope he’ll be OK for Le Samyn on Tuesday, but we’ll take it day by day.” Van Aert had already been feeling below par towards the end of the altitude camp and quickly realised that racing Omloop would not have been wise.

“He’s sick enough that racing isn’t something to think about right now. He can feel himself whether he’s capable of racing or not. It was pretty clear he wasn’t fit,” Niermann said. “And Omloop is an important race, but it’s not the peak. He wants to be good in four weeks and everything had been going well.”

What about Strade Bianche, coming up in just over a week? “Of course we want Wout healthy as quickly as possible, but we won’t take any risks. Strade Bianche is a nice goal, a race he has won before. For Wout it’s one of the best races there is, but he’d obviously love to win Flanders or Roubaix as well.”

That leaves one question: how has the ankle been since the fracture in Mol on 2 January? “Everything was going well with that. Wout has been able to do his training in Spain properly and there haven’t been any limitations for a while now, so it’s especially frustrating that he can’t show it now,” said Niermann. “Wout was ready to race — and that doesn’t disappear in a few days.”

It would almost slip your mind in the middle of everything, but Christophe Laporte also hit the deck recently. “That’s not an ideal scenario, but we hope he’ll be OK on Saturday and that he can show himself in the finale. For now it looks like a crash without too much damage.”

For now? “A crash at that speed is never ideal and he’s bruised, but Christophe is motivated and he’s shown he’s in good shape. If that wasn’t the case right now, we wouldn’t have brought him to Belgium.” (And no, there isn’t a word of Mistral-AI involved.)