Julian Alaphilippe's troubles continue, with the two-time world champion's Ardennes Classics campaign further disrupted after a knee injury sustained at the Tour of Flanders.
Alaphilippe has been forced out of Amstel Gold Race this Sunday and will also miss next Wednesday's La Flèche Wallonne, his team have confirmed to Cyclingnews.
The former world champion's participation in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the fourth Monument of the season and the final race of the Spring Classics, is up in the air as things stand.
Alaphilippe endured a difficult 2022 season marred by crashes, COVID-19 and illness. His 2023 season is following a similar theme.
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Illness held him back at the cobbled Classics and he was below his best at his first major season target, the Tour of Flanders, where a crash has thrown his Ardennes campaign into disarray.
Soudal-QuickStep team boss said at Sunday's Paris-Roubaix that Alaphilippe was "still in misery" due to the knee impact involved and stated that he would miss Amstel Gold Race.
The team have since confirmed that the Frenchman will miss La Flèche Wallonne, a race he has won three times. A decision on Liège-Bastogne-Liège will be taken next week.
Alaphilippe is back training again but his appearance in La Doyenne, a race he has nearly won on three occasions, remains in doubt.
Alaphilippe finished second on his debut at the race in 2015 but it hasn't been his happiest hunting ground since. He was ruled out of the 2017 Ardennes campaign with a knee injury, crashed out horrifically last year, missed out to Tadej Pogačar in 2021 and, most famously, celebrated at the line in 2020 only to be beaten by Primoz Roglic then relegated for an illegal manoeuvre.
Even if Alaphilippe doesn't line up next Sunday, Soudal-QuickStep will have one of the outstanding favourites in Remco Evenepoel, who soloed to victory 12 months ago to take his first Monument title.
Evenepoel will defend his Liège title as a parenthesis to his preparations for the Giro d'Italia, which have seen him win the UAE Tour and place second at Volta a Catalunya as well as a series of altitude training camps.
Reports that Evenepoel would parachute in for Amstel Gold Race this Sunday proved baseless, word having spread from a fake Facebook account set up to mimic Soudal-QuickStep manager Patrick Lefevere.
A similar hype was generated just before the Tour of Flanders, with Evenepoel teasing fans via social media before boarding a flight for Tenerife, where he has been training in early April with his teammates for the Giro.
Soudal-QuickStep are also missing Mauri Vansevenant with a knee injury and will be led at Amstel and Flèche by Andrea Bagioli and Mauro Schmid.
