'Extremely disappointing' - Powless ruled out of Classics after knee surgery

Neilson Powless has undergone successful surgery to remove inflamed tissue from his left knee, but he will be sidelined for "eight to twelve weeks," ruling him out of the Spring Classics. EF Education-EasyPost announced the news on Wednesday.

Knee inflammation had disrupted Powless’s winter and delayed his season start. After a pain-free training block, he returned at the Tour de la Provence, only for the issue to resurface on stage 3, leading to him abandoning the race.

The timing means Powless will miss Opening Weekend and the bulk of the cobbled Classics campaign, including the marquee one-days that define the early season. Based on the current timeline, a return to structured training would fall in late April to mid-May, with racing to follow only once benchmarks in rehabilitation are met. Powless noted it will be “a couple of months” before he can even begin to plan a race start.

“It is extremely disappointing to be missing out on the Classics,” Powless said. “I was excited to try some new races this year. I had a plan of races I wanted to target and do well in, so this is a big disappointment.”

Powless revealed that he had undergone three scans on his knee in recent months, with the first two showing signs of recovery, before a third scan after he abandoned the Tour de Provence.

“I felt pain again and had to stop. I had another scan done, and it showed that the inflammation had never fully gone away, even though I couldn’t feel it,” he said. 

“Surgery was going to give me the highest chance of success, so we opted for surgery. It’s my first surgery ever, but I was in good hands with the doctors here.”

Last spring, Powless took a standout win at Dwars door Vlaanderen in 2025, where he prevailed in a 1-vs-3 scenario against Visma | Lease a Bike. That performance cemented his status as a key EF Education-EasyPost option for the northern Classics and shaped the programme he had hoped to expand this year.