"It Is Going To Suck To Watch The Ardennes And Not Be A Part Of It" — EF Education-EasyPost Confirm Ben Healy Sustained A Fractured Sacrum At Itzulia Basque Country, Ruling The Irishman Out Of Amstel, Flèche And Liège With A Two-Week Off-Bike Recovery Window
EF Education-EasyPost confirmed in a Friday-afternoon press release issued from their Girona service course that Ben Healy will not start any of the three Ardennes Classics. The 25-year-old Irishman — who had been the team's protected leader for the full Amstel-Flèche-Liège block — sustained a fractured sacrum in a crash on Stage 3 of Itzulia Basque Country. CT imaging at the team's preferred sports-medicine centre in Girona on Wednesday confirmed the fracture as non-displaced, requires no surgical intervention, and will heal with a strict two-week off-bike rest block before any return to riding.
Healy's spring had been the most assured of his career. A second place at Strade Bianche on 1 March. Top tens at Milan-San Remo and the Tour of Flanders. A breakthrough Amstel Gold finish line had been the stated objective of the Irishman's 2026 spring after his 2024 second place at Amstel was followed by his third at Liège — the rider was, at the start of April, the bookmakers' fourth-favourite for Amstel and the third-favourite for Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The Stage 3 crash on the descent off the Ixua on 8 April changed that trajectory in a single corner.
Healy's Friday-evening Instagram post framed the moment in his typical understated tone. "It is going to suck to watch the Ardennes and not be a part of it. The team has worked all spring around me — the lads put in 30km TT pulls just so I could be fresh on the Cauberg, and I owe them a rain check. Two weeks off the bike, then we get back to the work. The Tour is a long way off and there is plenty of season ahead." The 25-year-old Irishman's contract extension to the end of 2029, signed in February, makes the Tour de France the redefined target.
EF Education-EasyPost's Ardennes squad is now reshaped around Neilson Powless as the protected Amstel leader, with the American having finished sixth at Amstel in 2025 and the team's best Ardennes result over the last three years coming via Powless. Richard Carapaz — recovering from his February dental-abscess surgery — joins the Liège-Bastogne-Liège line-up as a second leadership option. Marijn van den Berg leads at Flèche Wallonne where the Dutchman's recent Brabantse Pijl form on the Cauberg makes him a credible top-ten outsider. DS Andreas Klier described the reshape as "asking everyone to step up by one rung. Neilson is ready. Marijn is ready. Richard is ready."
The wider Ardennes leadership table is being rewritten by injury and illness this week. Juan Ayuso's viral infection rules out the Spaniard for Lidl-Trek. Tom Pidcock's knee contusion remains under daily assessment. Isaac del Toro's thigh-muscle tear MRI is being managed day-to-day for Liège. Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel — who fought out the Roubaix podium — are not racing the Ardennes by design. The pre-race favourites table now reads Evenepoel, Skjelmose, Jorgenson, Powless and Alaphilippe at Amstel.
The fractured sacrum is the same injury that Primož Roglič sustained in his Vuelta a España 2024 abandonment — a non-displaced fracture of the small triangular bone at the base of the spine, generally healing without surgery in four to six weeks of carefully managed return-to-load. Healy's medical team at EF Education-EasyPost — led by Dr Eduardo Olabarria — has scheduled a follow-up scan on 1 May to confirm the bone is consolidating cleanly. If that scan returns clean, Healy is expected to resume light indoor turbo work by 2 May, with a target return to outdoor riding by 8 May, and a tentative race return at the Critérium du Dauphiné on 7 June.
The Tour de France schedule is now the defined target. Healy's third Tour start in 2026 had always been part of the team's summer plan, but the Ardennes-to-Tour bridge had been engineered around the spring podiums extending to a full Ardennes triple-tilt. Klier confirmed in the Friday briefing that the Tour leadership remains as planned: Healy and Carapaz as co-captains for the GC, with Powless as the breakaway-and-stage-hunting card. "Ben has six weeks more time at home in Girona than we expected. He uses that time well. He always has."