Illness rules out Petacchi from Gent-Wevelgem

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Alessandro Petacchi's cobbled classics' campaign may have to wait till Scheldeprijs, with the Italian ruled out of Gent-Wevelgem due to illness. The Lampre-ISD sprinter has been struggling with a flu since Milan-San Remo, and missed last Friday's E3 Prijs for the same reason.

The team will now focus their efforts on supporting their other fast men, Gregor Bole and Danilo Hondo.

"Gent-Wevelgem is a tough race but it's one of the few classics that you can really hope for a sprint," said Lampre-ISD sporting director Fabrizio Bontempi. "Missing Alessandro is a loss, but we have other options and we'll be trying for success with Bole and Hondo."

Lampre-ISD are yet to win a race in 2012, though they have come close with Petacchi who recorded two top-3 finishes in January at the Tour Down Under.

The Lampre-ISD team for Gent-Wevelgem is: Grega Bole (Slo), Vitaliy Buts (Ukr), Davide Cimolai (Ita), Massimo Graziato (Ita), Danilo Hondo (Ger), Dmytro Krivtsov (Ukr), Davide Viganò (Ita)