ANALYSIS: Wout van Aert's five biggest rivals at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2026

The Spring Classics are about to begin. This week brings Opening Weekend, which fires the starting gun on one of the most special periods of the entire season. It will do so with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2026, a race that this year will feature a star studded line up battling for victory. And Wout van Aert will not miss this appointment as the debut of his road season.

Almost two months after his ankle fracture at the Exact Cross Mol, the Team Visma | Lease a Bike star is ready to compete again at the highest level. As always, it will be a cobbled Classic and, in its 2026 edition, the race will cover 207 kilometres with 12 sectors of pavé and multiple short climbs.

Alongside Wout van Aert will be superstars such as Paul Magnier, Tom Pidcock, Jasper Philipsen, Arnaud De Lie, Jordi Meeus, Soren Waerenskjold (who won the 2025 edition), Biniam Girmay, Kaden Groves, Tim Wellens, Matthew Brennan, Florian Vermeersch and… Mathieu van der Poel?

The winner could be decided either in a bunch sprint or in a reduced sprint between the strongest riders. With that in mind, who will be the five main rivals to Van Aert in his road debut of the 2026 season? Here are the standout names.

The rider I believe will start Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2026 as the favourite for victory is Paul Magnier. His Soudal Quick-Step team want to return to the glory days of the ‘Wolfpack’ in the Classics, and the Frenchman will be their main weapon to achieve that.

Despite being just 21 years old, Magnier is already one of the best in the world. In 2025, he was the rider with the second most victories of the season, behind only Tadej Pogacar. He also raced Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and came close to victory, with Soren Waerenskjold taking the win and Magnier finishing second on the line.

Added to that, after a spectacular finish to last season, Paul Magnier has started this one at the same level. At the Volta ao Algarve, he took victory in both sprint stages, beating rivals of the calibre of Jasper Philipsen and Jordi Meeus. Without doubt, he will be Van Aert’s main adversary for the win.

One of the best riders in the world will be at the start of Omloop. Tom Pidcock, one of those rare cyclists capable of winning mountain stages, sprints and very hard Classics, will represent Pinarello - Q36.5 in search of victory.

The ideal scenario for him would be a reduced sprint within a leading group, although he can also handle a larger bunch finish.

Tom Pidcock is a Classics specialist eager to expand a palmarès that still feels light. Although it may seem surprising, he has “only” 11 professional victories to his name. The most recent came on the final stage of last year’s Vuelta a Andalucía, where a devastating attack 5.5 kilometres from the finish dropped all the other favourites and allowed him to cross the line solo.

For Arnaud De Lie, cobbled Classics are his natural terrain. As the star of Lotto - Intermarché, he is still waiting for his first victory since the merger of the two WorldTour teams into one structure.

Like Tom Pidcock, he can manage both large bunch sprints and reduced finishes, with perhaps slightly more outright speed than the Briton.

At 23 years old, De Lie arrives at Opening Weekend as one of the local heroes. Racing in Belgium will give him the same motivation as Wout van Aert. He also comes in with two solid results already: fifth at the Clásica de Almería and another fifth place on stage one of the Volta ao Algarve.

With Jasper Philipsen, the context is very different to that of Paul Magnier. The Alpecin - Premier Tech star arrives at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2026 with doubts after an underwhelming Volta ao Algarve, where he finished fourth in the first sprint and tenth in the second, despite expectations of at least a top three in both.

But Philipsen is a sprinter with 58 career victories, many of them in cobbled Classics. His pedigree in this type of race makes him a lethal rival. In 2025 he finished third at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and won Kuurne - Bruxelles - Kuurne the following day. To overlook him this year would be a serious mistake, both for Wout van Aert and the rest of the field.

Finally, Biniam Girmay completes the top five of, on paper, the strongest rivals who could most complicate Wout van Aert’s path to victory. The Eritrean is one of the most in-form riders at the moment. His move to NSN Cycling Team has started extremely well, at least judging by his results in his first two races in their colours.

Girmay made his NSN debut at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana 2026, where he needed no adaptation period to claim his first win. On stage one in Torreblanca, he had no rival and, thanks to that result, also secured the points classification. He then went to the Clásica de Almería and dominated another sprint, even with Arnaud De Lie among the contenders.