The Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2017 podium: Peter Sagan, Greg Van Avermaet and Sep Vanmarcke(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing) on the podium after winning Omloop Het Nieuwsblad(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
German champion Marcus Burghardt will head up the Bora-Hansgrohe squad at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, as last year's runner-up Peter Sagan opts to skip the event this season.
Joining Burghardt will be new recruit Daniel Oss, Christoph Pfingsten, Lukas Postlberger, Aleksejs Saramotins, Andreas Schillinger and Michael Schwarzmann.
Burghardt's best finish in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad was a fifth place in 2009 while racing with Team Columbia-HTC.
Sagan, who won a stage and the points classification in the Tour Down Under in January, is training in the Sierra Nevada mountains in Spain in preparation for the Classics. His next race is Strade Bianche on March 3.
Powless out of Abu Dhabi Tour due to passport issues
Team LottoNl-Jumbo will start the Abu Dhabi Tour with only six riders instead of seven after American Neilson Powless was stranded at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam because of passport issues.
The team will back Giro d'Italia stage winner Jos van Emden for the overall classification, with Danny van Poppel, winner of the opening Vuelta a la Comunitat Valenciana stage, as the squad's sprinter for the opening three flat stages.
Powless, in his first WorldTour season with the Dutch squad, will not be replaced. Pascal Eenkhoor, Antwan Tolhoek, Gijs Van Hoecke and Robert Wagner round out the LottoNl-Jumbo team for the Abu Dhabi Tour.
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Omloop Het Nieuwsblad promo video breaks the mould
The promotional video for the upcoming Omloop Het Nieuwsblad breaks the mould of the usual racing and landscape scenes, adding cartoon animations and jump cuts of racing cars, rockets and even wild lions to the mix.
Tiejs Benoot, Yves Lampaert, and Oliver Naesen star in the video.
Lotte Kopecky, who with Jolien D'hoore became the first women to win a Madison World Championship last year, is in doubt to defend the title after being injured in a crash during training.
Kopecky was participating in a practice race in Rumst when she was unable to avoid a crash with 4km to go, according to the Belgian Cycling Federation. She was diagnosed with a possible fracture in the radius bone in her elbow.
The UCI Track World Championships take place in Apeldoorn from February 28 to March 4. The Women's Madison is scheduled for March 3.
Shari Bossuyt was named as a potential replacement to race the Madison with D'hoore.
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