Thomas Löfkvist (IAM) has been hit by a car while out training and suffered a compound fracture to his index finger on his left hand. Expected to be out of competition for six weeks, he will miss his major season targets in the Ardennes classics and the Tour de Romandie.

With the squad being a brand-new professional continental team, there was plenty of uncertainty surrounding the team's racing schedule prior to the season. Not knowing whether his calendar would include any of the grand tours, the team's GC captain Thomas Löfkvist pointed to the Ardennes classics and the team's big home races the Tour de Romandie and the Tour de Suisse as he major season objectives.

However, the Swede has now only the latter race left on his list of major targets. Today he was hit by a car while out training and a compound fracture to his index finger on his left hand will keep him out of competition for six weeks. With an expected return to action in late May, it will be hard for the Swede to line up in the biggest Swiss stage race in peak condition.

The team is another blow for the Swiss team which lost Aleksejs Saramotins to a broken scaphoid suffered in a Paris-Roubaix crash. The team is one of six teams - the others being Europcar, Sojasun, Cofidis, Bretagne and NetApp-Endura - fighting for three wild cards to the Tour de France and hopes to use a strong performance in the Ardennes to push its way into the world's biggest race. Without Löfkvist on the roster, the task will be significantly harder.

The team has not yet chosen a substitute for Sunday's Amstel Gold Race. The 7 remaining riders in the line-up are Stefan Denifl, Marco Bandiera, Martin Elmiger, Matthias Brändle, Reto Hollenstein, Pirmin Lang and Alexandr Pliuschin.

On Sunday you can follow all the action from the Dutch road on CyclingQuotes.com/live.