"Surgery was the best solution": Taco van der Hoorn to miss Classics and Giro after knee operation

Taco van der Hoorn faces another long road to recovery. The Dutch breakaway specialist has been forced to undergo surgery on his knee, a decision that effectively ends his spring campaign before it truly began. On Friday, Lotto-Intermarché confirmed that the 32-year-old will miss both the Classics and the Giro d'Italia.

It is a bitter blow for Van der Hoorn, who only recently re-established himself in the peloton after a career-threatening injury. Now, a condition known as prepatellar friction syndrome has put his 2026 season on hold.

Van der Hoorn has been struggling with the issue since the start of the year. He was originally scheduled to race the Tour Down Under in January but was pulled from the start list due to persistent pain. When rest and conservative treatment failed to solve the problem, the medical staff decided to intervene.

“He started experiencing knee pain in early January, which also prevented him from starting the Tour Down Under, and it was decided together with the team that surgery was the best solution,” the team explained in an official statement.

The operation took place on Friday morning in Belgium. It was successful, but the recovery timeline is strict. "Taco will not be able to ride for the next four weeks and will then have to build up gradually," the team confirmed. "This means he will miss the Classics and the Giro, his main goals this season."

This is a sadly familiar territory for Van der Hoorn, who previously fought back from a severe concussion sustained at the 2023 Tour of Flanders, which kept him out of the peloton for more than 500 days.

He returned late in 2024 to win the Betcity Elfstedenrace and had a solid 2025 campaign, finishing 20th at Paris-Roubaix and riding aggressively in the Giro. These performances earned him a two-year contract extension with the newly merged Lotto-Intermarché squad, but he will now have to wait to repay that faith on the road.