Toxic cocktail leaves Amstel Gold Race short on stars: Remco Evenepoel only rider from world top 15 in Gold Race

Of course, Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race will mainly be about the riders who are actually there. Still, many casual cycling viewers tuning in on NPO 1 or other broadcasters may well ask themselves the same question: where are Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Tadej Pogačar? In any case, Remco Evenepoel will not run into them in South Limburg on Sunday.

Tadej Pogačar chose a very heavy spring programme in 2026, taking on Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. He rode those races last year as well, but in 2025 they were followed by the Amstel Gold Race and Flèche Wallonne. In South Limburg, he finished second, two years after winning the race for the first time in 2023.

The fact that Pogačar is not racing this year is not so much down to what he has already done this season. After checking with sports director Andrej Hauptman, it appears the main reason lies in what comes after Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Two days after La Doyenne, Pogačar will start the Tour de Romandie for the first time, one of the few races still missing from his palmarès.

Leo van Vliet would naturally have hoped that the best Dutch cyclist of his generation would line up in his final edition as race director, but just like in 2025, Mathieu van der Poel will not take part in the Amstel Gold Race. After his most recent appearance in 2024, Van der Poel said afterwards that he was “not super anymore” following a long spring campaign.

And that spring started even earlier in 2026, with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad at the end of February as his first race. It is therefore only logical that Van der Poel has chosen some well-earned rest after six busy weeks, before building towards his next major goals.

Last year, Wout van Aert chose to continue after Paris-Roubaix by riding Brabantse Pijl and the Amstel Gold Race, but there is one major difference this time: back then, he had not ridden the Italian block of Strade Bianche, Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-San Remo. Now, the Belgian has again chosen to take time off after winning Paris-Roubaix.

Van Aert flew to Marbella in Spain with his family the day after Roubaix. After completing what he himself described as his life’s work, it is time to enjoy the moment. The thought of adding Amstel to the schedule will therefore hardly have crossed his mind.

Tom Pidcock will also be absent from the Amstel Gold Race on Sunday. The Briton, winner of the race in 2024 and, according to himself, also in 2021, would have loved to be there, but a crash in the Volta a Catalunya has ruined the plans of this year’s Milan-San Remo runner-up.

The Pinarello-Q36.5 rider is not yet fit enough to compete for victory in a race such as the Amstel Gold Race. He is, however, due to start the Tour of the Alps on Monday, a five-day stage race. In that way, he still hopes to ride himself into shape for Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Sunday.

The number two on the UCI Ranking, Isaac del Toro of UAE Team Emirates-XRG, will also not race in South Limburg. In Pogačar’s absence, he was originally designated as the team’s leader for the Gold Race, but a crash in the Tour of the Basque Country means he has to stay off the bike for a while.

Del Toro suffered a thigh muscle injury and will therefore not race in the coming week. He is not the only rider from the Emirati team who will be missing. Jhonatan Narváez, with a fractured vertebra, Jan Christen, with a broken collarbone, and Brandon McNulty, who abandoned in the Basque Country, are also out despite originally being marked as key options. Tim Wellens, recently returned from a collarbone injury himself, does not yet appear fit enough to chase a result either.

In the Tour of the Basque Country, Paul Seixas of Decathlon CMA CGM once again impressed, winning three stages and the overall classification of that stage race at just 19 years of age. Earlier this season, he had already finished second in Strade Bianche, behind Pogačar.

Seixas is down to ride Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but at his team the line on Amstel remains: “Paul cannot ride everything.” That means South Limburg will not yet get to enjoy the arrival of the next big thing, Seixas.

Ben Healy will also have to miss the coming week, which had been his major goal of the year. The Irishman crashed during the recon of the opening time trial at the Tour of the Basque Country, in what initially looked like a harmless fall. One week later, however, it turned out he had suffered a fracture in his sacrum.

“It’s terrible. I just have to take the hit. I’m trying not to think about it too much, but it will be awful to watch the Ardennes and not be there. That’s cycling,” a disappointed Healy said.

If we look at the UCI ranking, only Remco Evenepoel, fourth in the world, is present from the top fifteen riders on the planet. Jonas Vingegaard, from Visma | Lease a Bike, which must also do without last year’s revelation Louis Barré, João Almeida of UAE and several other riders are preparing at altitude for the Giro d’Italia, while the pool of riders coming out of Roubaix is becoming smaller and smaller.

Lidl-Trek have removed Juan Ayuso, due to a viral infection, Thibau Nys, after knee surgery, and Giulio Ciccone from the list of contenders, while XDS-Astana also crossed off Christian Scaroni, eighteenth in the world ranking, on Friday. Alongside Evenepoel, the riders from the top thirty who will be present in Maastricht are Kévin Vauquelin of INEOS, sixteenth; Romain Grégoire of Groupama-FDJ, 23rd; Mauro Schmid of Jayco AlUla, 27th; Mattias Skjelmose of Lidl-Trek, 28th; and Matteo Jorgenson of Visma | Lease a Bike, 30th.

Another striking detail: besides Seixas, plenty of riders are choosing to skip Amstel in favour of Flèche Wallonne and Liège. Lenny Martinez of Bahrain Victorious, Lennert Van Eetvelt of Lotto-Intermarché and Tobias Halland Johannessen of Uno-X Mobility are among those taking that route.

Looking at last year’s top ten, only Skjelmose, Evenepoel and Grégoire are present this time. Other regular names such as Michael Matthews of Jayco AlUla and Tiesj Benoot of Decathlon CMA CGM have already been sidelined for some time.