Local favorite Wout Van Aert and his Jumbo Visma team will be without Dylan Van Baarle in Sunday's Tour of Flanders.

Van Baarle, the reigning Paris-Roubaix champion and runner-up in Flanders last spring, crashed heavily in last Friday's E3 Saxo Classic, and as a result was forced to miss Wednesday's Doire de Flanderen.

The 30-year-old, who started Jumbo Visma's 2023 Cobblestone Classic campaign last month at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, was supposed to be a key assistant to Van Aert in Sunday's race and should also contend in his own right. But when Jumbo Visma announced the Flanders contingent on Thursday afternoon, his name was not there.

Van Baar collapsed at the entrance to the cobbled section of the Stationberg with 58km remaining in the E3 Saxo Classic, falling along with Florian Senechal (Soudal-Quick Step) and Honatan Narvaez (Ineos Grenadiers), just as Van Aar and Mathieu van der Pol (Alpecin-Desseuninck) had just launched an attack at the front.

Van Baar's injury was not the main reason for his absence; an illness was designated by the team, probably due to the after-effects of the crash.

Team director Maarten Winants told Cycling News, "He doesn't have a specific illness or anything, but he is not in 100% condition for the Tour de Flanders."

"I have scrapes on my hip and knee and I'm a little out of shape recovering from that. You lose strength to recover from a hard crash, and as a result, you get sick later on. This is my opinion.

Weinanz confirmed that Van Baar completed a six-hour training ride on Sunday, two days after the crash, indicating that "he is coming along well."

However, he was unable to recover from that effort and left Dwars door Vlaanderen on Wednesday as a precautionary measure. After no improvement on Wednesday or Thursday morning, he was pulled out of Flanders for the purpose of bailing out of Paris-Roubaix, the final race of the Cobbled Classics.

"The main reason for pulling him out for the de Waal was to allow him to recover 100% from the crash, but he fell ill and the race in Flanders was over.

"It's very disappointing. He is one of the big athletes. He's one of the big riders who will miss the final."

Van Aert led the Dutch team in Flanders, Ghent-Wevelgem and Dwar de Hlaanderen winner Christoph Rappold, Coone Brussel Coone winner Tige Benoot, Eduardo Affini and Tosh van der Sande, Nathan van Hooydonk, and Tim van Dijk fill out the Jumbo Wisma squad.