Jumbo-Visma have been hit by a double whammy of non-starters for Liège-Bastogne-Liège after it emerged Sunday morning that Sam Oomen and Tosh Van der Sande will not be present because of positive tests for COVID-19.
Oomen and Van der Sande were set to be part of the team supporting Tiesj Benoot in his bid for victory in cycling’s oldest Classic.
Van der Sande described himself as ‘gutted’ on a message posted on Twitter, but insisted his teammates were ready to take on the 258.1 kilometre race.
Another important name missing amongst the support riders for Liège-Bastogne-Liège late on was UAE Team Emirate’s Diego Ulissi: the Italian uphill finisher has fallen ill and has been replaced by Michael Vink.
“Sam and Tosh are not really sick, but they do have an increased heart rate and feel a bit week,” Benoot told sporza.be before the start.
"Sam was someone who could go very far in the final, he has already finished 11th here. Tosh was important for the positioning for La Redoute. We will now have to deal with that in a different way."
Samuele Battistella (Astana-Qazaqstan) was another non-starter at Liège-Bastogne-Liège because of sickness.
The number of COVID-19 cases has dropped considerably in professional cycling in 2023 compared to the spate of cases in the summer and autumn of 2022, but Oomen’s and Van der Sande’s positives for the virus are not the first this year by a long way.
French sprinter Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) had a delay on his season start as a result of a positive for COVID-19, Simon Clark (Israel-Premier Tech) returned a positive for the virus just before the Santos Tour Down Under, Elisa Longo Borghini (Trek-Segafredo) a month later and Michael Matthews (Jayco-AIUIa) in the countdown to Milano-SanRemo.
