Vanmarcke on coronavirus: It's a bad situation

EF Pro Cycling’s Sep Vanmarcke at the 2020 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad
EF Pro Cycling’s Sep Vanmarcke at the 2020 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad (Image credit: Getty Images Sport)

Belgian Classics specialist Sep Vanmarcke is supposed to already be in Tuscany, Italy, for this Saturday's Strade Bianche, but a combination of its likely cancellation due to coronavirus concerns and his own EF Pro Cycling team's request to the UCI and race organiser RCS Sport for them not to have to ride the upcoming Italian spring races means that Vanmarcke is training at home in Belgium, waiting to see what happens next.

According to Het Nieuwsblad, the 31-year-old is hoping to instead race at Paris-Nice, which is due to start in Plaisir, just outside Paris, on Sunday. And while the French stage race is looking far more likely to happen than Strade Bianche – due to the Italian government's directive that all sporting and public events are cancelled for the coming month – Paris-Nice is also in danger of not running after a number of teams' doctors, including those at EF Pro Cycling, wrote to the race organisers to suggest the cancellation of all of the upcoming racing.

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