GP Oetingen cancelled due to heavy snow

The heavy snowfall in northern Europe forced the cancellation of the GP Oetingen in Belgium on Wednesday. Organisers waited until the last possible moment, just a couple of hours before the scheduled start, before deciding to pull the plug on the event. 

The course for the Belgian one-day women's race, which takes place west of Brussels, was heavily impacted by the overnight snowfall. 

The 1.1-categorised race had been set to feature eight Women's WorldTour teams: Team DSM, Jumbo-Visma, Human Powered Health, Movistar, Jayco-AlUla, Uno-X, UAE Team ADQ, and Fenix-Deceuninck. 

This year's edition was set to be the third, with Elisa Balsamo winning the inaugural race in 2021 on her final year at Valcar-Travel & Service and Lorena Wiebes (Team DSM) triumphing last year. 

There was another cancellation on the women's calendar on Wednesday, as the second stage of the Trofeo Ponente in Rosa was called off - as the first stage was - due to a dispute with local authorities over securing the route.

On the men's calendar, Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico both continued as normal this week.

This isn't the first time snow has disrupted racing this season, with a stage of the recent Gran Camiño called off with just 20km remaining due to a blizzard. 

The women's peloton will now turn to this weekend's Ronde van Drenthe in the Netherlands, one of the main early WorldTour one-day races of the spring.