June 17 (Reuters) – Belgium’s Wout van Aert will miss this year’s Tour de France because of an elbow injury sustained \u200bat the Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, his Visma-Lease a Bike \u200cteam said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The 31-year-old, who won Paris-Roubaix in April, would have been a key member of the Dutch team’s \u200bTour squad and a top contender for stage \u200bvictories.<\/p>\n
Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n Van Aert crashed in training at the Tour \u2060Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes and was forced to abandon the race after \u200bhis elbow wound became infected, requiring an overnight stay in \u200bhospital.<\/p>\n “Wout is one of the most important riders in our team and we would obviously have loved to have him at \u200bthe start of the Tour,” race coach Marc Reef \u200bsaid in a statement.<\/p>\n “In recent days we have explored all options, \u200cbut \u2060ultimately his health comes first.”<\/p>\n Van Aert has 10 Tour de France stage wins from his seven appearances in the race and was the points jersey winner in \u200b2022.<\/p>\n “This is of \u200bcourse a \u2060big disappointment. The Tour de France is one of my main goals every year. \u200bUnfortunately, a crash during training has put \u200ba spanner \u2060in the works,” he said.<\/p>\n The team said his replacement would be announced next week.<\/p>\n Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard will lead the \u2060Visma \u200bchallenge for the yellow jersey \u200bin the race that begins in Barcelona next month, having triumphed in \u200bthe Giro d’Italia.<\/p>\n Reporting by Martyn Herman; Editing by Toby Chopra<\/p>\n Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n