Thomas Löfkvist (IAM Cycling) will miss the upcoming Ardennes Classics due to injury, after having become the latest professional rider to have been hit by a car while out training. The Swedish rider, who would likely have been one of the Swiss team’s strongest riders in the hilly races, was thankfully not seriously hurt, but sustained a compound fracture to the index finger of his left hand.
Having been examined by specialists at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, Löfkvist will undergo surgery this evening, and so will be out of competition for an estimated six weeks.
In addition to the Ardennes Classics of the Amstel Gold Race, la Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Löfkvist will also be forced to miss the Tour de Romandie between April 23rd and 28th; the Swiss race will doubtlessly be one of the big targets for the IAM Cycling team, and he will be sorely missed.
The former Swedish champion is the second rider lost through injury by IAM Cycling this week, with Aleksejs Saramotins suffering a fractured scaphoid in a crash in Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix.
Löfkvist took the new team’s first victory at the early season Tour Méditerranéen.