Keystone
Marc Hirschi's crash in the Ardennes classic Flèche Wallonne did not go as smoothly as three days earlier in the Amstel Gold Race.
According to his team Tudor, the Bernese rider suffered a fracture to his left collarbone in the violent impact around 20 km before the finish. Due to the severity of the injury, Hirschi will have to undergo an operation on Thursday.
This means that not only his start at Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Sunday is out of the question, but also his planned participation in the Giro d'Italia in May.
After Stefan Küng and Matteo Trentin, Hirschi is already the third hopeful in Fabian Cancellara's Team Tudor, who is out of the spring classics for the long term due to a broken bone.