Mathew Hayman of ORICA-GreenEDGE was involved in a crash at the Belgian race Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday and suffered a fracture to the radius bone in his right arm.

The road captain for the team’s Classics squad will be sorely missed in the coming weeks after playing a key role in the team’s success over the Australian Summer. The injury will see the Australian Classics specialist back on the road training in around four weeks time.

Thirty seven year old Hayman is a former Commonwealth Games champion and was carrying some excellent form into the Spring Classics season, together with his invaluable experience after more than a decade of riding the biggest one-day races in the world.

Sports director Laurenzo Lapage elaborated on Hayman’s importance to the team.

“It is a real shame that we will go into the next races without Mat. He was our road captain and someone who is always 100% ready for the Classics. His type of experience you cannot under-estimate,

“When he crashed, he was sitting in the right position as always, but it just goes to show how luck and often bad luck is a deciding factor in these races.”

Lapage concluded by saying.

“We obviously need to look forward and as I said to the guys today before the race, we need to regroup and someone else will step up to take this role. We have real ambitions for the cobbled races and we will make sure we do our best to chase results we came here for.”

Hayman himself added.

“It is one of those things, part of racing, part of our sport, but still always hard to accept. I had spent months training for these races and to have it end like that, so quickly is disappointing to say the least.

“It is not a complicated fracture, and I am hoping that it will heal quickly and I can be back on the road with the boys as fast as possible.”