Former Tour de France and Giro d'Italia stage winner out until August following knee surgery

Former Giro d'Italia and Tour de France stage winner Victor Lafay is set to miss both Grand Tours this year due to recovery from knee surgery.

The French rider, who races for Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale, underwent surgery on Monday after suffering from recurring knee pain, his team announced on Wednesday.

29-year-old Lafay will be forced to take a full month off the bike following the surgery, with a return to racing only coming at the end of the summer.

"Victor Lafay had been dealing with a recurring knee pain that required surgery. The procedure was successfully carried out on Monday," Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale announced on social media.

"He will now take a month-long break to recover before resuming training. His return to competition is expected in August."

The procedure means Lafay will be forced to write off much of his season. This spring, he completed seven days of racing, taking third place at the Classic Var and completing Milan-San Remo before withdrawing from action on stage 3 of Itzulia Basque Country.

Lafay moved from Cofidis to Decathlon AG2R for 2024. However, his season was heavily disrupted by another knee issue.

His debut with his new team was delayed until the Tour de l'Ain in mid-July. He'd finish seventh at the race, also competing at the Vuelta a España, before rounding out his 2024 season with fourth place at the Tour of Guangxi.

Previously, Lafay had hit stardom with stage wins at the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France. In 2021, he triumphed from the breakaway to win at Guardia Sanframondi in Italy, while two years ago, a final-kilometre solo saw him hold off Wout van Aert, Tadej Pogačar, and Tom Pidcock to win stage 2 of the Tour de France in San Sébastián.

Last summer, while the Tour went on without him, Lafay told L'Equipe that he was suffering from a painful condition of his "kneecap rubbing against the femur".

"In mid-January, I felt pain in my left knee while riding," he said. "We quickly understood that it was in the kneecap and femur, but it took us a long time to find the cause and the remedy. We didn't know if it was a muscular imbalance or if we needed to do strengthening.

"Then we finally found a good treatment approach about a month and a half ago with stretching and defibrosing. That is, we massage the scars and use suction cups to try to free the surrounding tissue.

"Over time, I acquired so much knowledge that I asked my physiotherapists if there were any direct pathways to entering a school in the third year."

It's unclear whether Lafay's current knee issue is related to the issue which saw him miss six months of the 2024 season, but he will be out of action for some time following his surgery.