Two months after breaking his collarbone in a high-speed crash at the finish of stage 3 of the Tour de France, Caleb Yuan (Lotto-Soudal) returned to racing in the Druyvenkors Ovelaise.

The Australian rider initially hoped to score at least one stage victory in all three Grand Tours this year. He got off to a good start with two wins in the Giro d'Italia, but that plan quickly fell apart when he fell on his first chance for a sprint stage win in the Tour de France and suffered a displaced complex fracture of his right collarbone.

He missed the Vuelta a España to recover and turned his attention to other goals for 2021, including the UCI World Championships in Flanders, where he and Michael Matthews will lead the Australian contingent.

Ewan, along with Tim Wellens and Philippe Gilbert of Lotto Soudal, lined up for the one-day Druivenkoers Ovelaise, which includes several short, steep climbs that will be raced at this year's World Championships, but things did not go as planned for the 27-year-old It was a return to racing.

"First day back in the race with a broken collarbone," Ewan posted on Instagram. 'It wasn't the smoothest comeback, but I'm happy with my form right now.'

Despite the injury interruption, Yuan, who has won five races this year, did not finish the race. Although he was a retiree on the results, he did not sit quietly in the peloton in his return to competition.

"The race exploded with around 70km to go, and I was part of the attack with Caleb, but he went a little over his limit and had to break away," teammate Wellens said in the team post.

"It was clear that Evenpoel was the strongest rider in the race, and he attacked when everyone else was at their limits.

Remco Evenpoel (Deceuninck-Quick Step) won the race with a 60km solo attack. The Belgian rider held a 35-second lead until a traffic accident and fire with 35km to go forced race organizers to suspend the race for 15 minutes. Evenpoel was unfazed by the accident, and after the restart he opened up a further gap.