On Wednesday, Wout Van Aert won his second Crystal Bicycle Trophy, but in his place Slovenia's Jumbo Visma teammate Primoš Roglic won the Best Belgian Rider award. Van Aert attended the event only via video call, as he was laid up with a cold.

The three-time cyclocross world champion, who will start his season at the Superprestige in Boom on Saturday, was unable to complete his scheduled training.

A self-test for COVID-19 was negative and he will be retested in the next few days, but according to the Flanders newspaper, the rider thought it was a cold.

"I don't think we need to look much further than the rain and cold of the last few days. I felt I hadn't recovered enough from the bad weather training," Van Aert said in Het Nieuwsblad.

As for Van Aart's chances of keeping his scheduled start date, the 27-year-old was hopeful. 'I don't think it's a big deal,' he said. 'Hopefully I'll recover well in the next few days. It will be a plus for next weekend. But I'm not going to take any risks."

If Van Aert is to start the boom that saw him finish fourth in 2020, he will line up with eventual eventual rival Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), who will start the season on the steep climbs of the C2 race. World champion Mathieu Van Der Pol (Alpecin Phoenix) will be competing a little later in the season at the Lucfen World Cup in the Netherlands on December 18.

Boom's next race will be the Etihad Cross in Essen on December 11, his first World Cup race in the Valle di Sole. The Antwerp World Cup, scheduled for the day after the Boom Superprestige, was cancelled by organizers who were preoccupied with the impact of stricter COVID-19-related regulations amid worsening caseloads in Belgium.