Van Aert confirms Omloop-only plan as Laporte beats crash scare ahead of Opening Weekend

Wout van Aert will start his season at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday after recovering from the ankle fracture he sustained in early January, while Christophe Laporte will line out for Visma | Lease a Bike at Opening Weekend despite crashing out of the Ruta del Sol on Sunday.

Van Aert will lead the team at Omloop, where he will be joined in the line-up by Laporte and Matthew Brennan. The Belgian will then sit out Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, where Laporte and Brennan will be the figureheads for Visma.

As previously indicated, Visma have also confirmed that Van Aert will make his Le Samyn debut on March 3, again alongside Laporte. He will then line up at Strade Bianche, Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-San Remo.

Van Aert won Omloop in 2022, when the event was also his first race of the new season. He placed third behind then-teammate Jan Tratnik in 2024, while he had to settle for 11th last year in a race won by Søren Wærenskjold (Uno-X Mobility) in a bunch sprint.

Van Aert has opted to forgo Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, which he won on his last appearance in 2024. His Visma team completed a sweep of the Opening Weekend races in both 2023 and 2024, though three of the winners – Tratnik, Dylan van Baarle and Tiesj Benoot – have since left for other teams.

Laporte impressed at last week’s Vuelta a Andalucía with a stage win and a string of strong rides, but he crashed out on the final stage after a rider in front slipped and took out his front wheel.

Visma have now confirmed that Laporte will line up for both races on Opening Weekend, marking his return after missing the entire spring campaign last year through injury. 

The 33-year-old has a strong record in the Belgian curtain raisers. In 2023 and 2024 he finished third and fifth at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, and sixth and fourth at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, underlining his consistency in the early season Classics.

Brennan impressed in his debut season at WorldTour level last year, winning a dozen races, and the Briton is set to be a mainstay of Visma’s cobbled Classics unit in 2026. He notched his first win of the new season at the Tour Down Under last month.