Participants Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne 2026 | No Wout van Aert on provisional start list

To be clear, this is still a provisional start list — and plenty can change between now and the sign-on in Kortrijk. For example, Alpecin–Premier Tech have not entered defending winner Jasper Philipsen on this preliminary list, but the Belgian is still expected to race on Sunday as part of the team’s Opening Weekend plans.

Two teams have not submitted any riders to the organisers yet either: Picnic PostNL and Lidl–Trek. In Lidl–Trek’s case, however, it is already known that they intend to bring their sprint ace Jonathan Milan to the start in Kortrijk.

Another notable detail is the absence of Wout van Aert on the provisional start list. The Belgian leader of Visma | Lease a Bike appears set to skip Kuurne in favour of Le Samyn on Tuesday, although the final decision has not yet been confirmed publicly. Visma | Lease a Bike do feature on the current list with Christophe Laporte and Matthew Brennan included.

Alongside riders expected to double up from Omloop — such as Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step), Arnaud De Lie (Lotto–Intermarché), Biniam Girmay (NSN) and Jordi Meeus (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe) — several squads are bringing a ‘fresh’ sprinter into the line-up, including Tudor (Maikel Zijlaard), Bahrain Victorious (Phil Bauhaus), Jayco AlUla (Pascal Ackermann) and Cofidis (Milan Fretin).

One WorldTour team will not be racing Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne again in 2026: INEOS Grenadiers, who have chosen to skip the event for years.