Lars van der Haar, winner of two of the five World Cup races so far this cyclo-cross season, is to miss Tuesday’s bpost bank trophee race in Loenhout, Belgium. The recent winner of the Heusden-Zolder race is to focus on fully recovering from a cold picked up following yesterday’s race in Diegem.

Despite still on strong race form, the decision was taken together with the coaches and team’s medical experts that the Dutch cyclo-cross champion would sit out the race on December 30 to focus on being fully recovered ahead of a busy schedule in early January.

Coach Dirk Reuling explained: “It’s never nice to miss a race but we took the decision after Lars’s recovery ride today that he should miss tomorrow’s race to make sure that he’s in top form for the coming races. Yesterday was a hard evening race in Diegem and this will prevent further problems in the races to come.”

Van der Haar's next race should then be the GP Sven Nys in Baal on January 1, when he will officially be a part of the WorldTour program of Giant-Alpecin.