No Sep Vanmarcke in Tour of Flanders

The debacle within the team started a while ago. The leader for the Flemish races, Sep Vanmarcke, was already absent for the Belgian opening classic Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. sick. The West Fleming then went to Tenerife for an internship, but was only able to partially complete it as planned. On his return, Vanmarcke relapsed. The return came in the E3 Saxo Bank Classic Harelbeke, but he did not finish that race. In Gent-Wevelgem and Dwars door Vlaanderen there was improvement. In the team, on the other hand, one rider after another dropped out. For Dwars door Vlaanderen last Wednesday, sports director Dirk Demol was only able to register five riders the day before the race. The day of the race itself, Guillaume Boivin and Jenthe Biermans also dropped out and Israel-Premier Tech completed the race with Sep Vanmarcke, Canadian Hugo Houle and Australian Taj Jones. And now the latter has also fallen out due to illness.

Sour apple

“I can name a very long list of riders who are either in the rag basket after a fall or who are sick in bed. Before the Tour I now had only two fit riders left. We contacted the organizers and explained our situation. Antwerp is therefore not on the agenda. How to proceed now? Get sick and count on the boys who are gradually coming out of their rehabilitation. I hope that in Paris-Roubaix we will be back at full strength with regard to our ‘cobblestone riders’. We must now bite through this extremely sour apple, but hopefully we will come back stronger from this black period,” said sports director Dirk Demol.