Neilson Powless will miss cobbled classics due to knee injury from Tirreno-Adriatico: "I'm itching to get back racing again"

Neilson Powless eyes return to full training soon, after having abandoned Tirreno-Adriatico during stage six due to knee pain. The EF Education-EasyPost rider thus had to give up racing Milano-Sanremo last week, and likely won't be seen in action at the Flemish classics either.

"It was definitely hard to just watch Milano-Sanremo. I was screaming for Bettiol and, at the same time, I just wanted to be there so badly. But I know we’ve made the right decision with me not racing there. It’s quite a few hands on deck at the team to get me healthy and that’s made me feel like I’ve been getting well looked after. I have a lot of good people taking care of me and looking out for me, so I’m confident we’ve been making the right calls so far," Powless said in press release.

"So long as I can do a full week’s training or so without any problems, then we’ll start to decide on a return race," Neilson said. "I’m just itching for it but I have a lot of people looking out for me and I appreciate that."

Powles thus won't be able to defend his third place at Dwars door Vlaanderen and fifth place from Tour of Flanders next week. The American had the best season of his career in 2023 and was looking to build on it, but this knee injury will prevent him from doing so.