By Shane Stokes
A lingering bout of Covid-19 has cost Archie Ryan his long-awaited guest slot with the Jumbo-Visma WorldTour squad, forcing the Wicklow rider to delay his debut.
Ryan had been scheduled to ride Saturday’s Volta Limburg Classic with the top-ranked team, his first time to step up to WorldTour level under a UCI rule introduced in 2020. This enables riders competing with development squads affiliated to WorldTour teams to temporarily step up a level via guest slots.
However he has now been ruled out of the 1.1-ranked Dutch event.
“Bad news, I tested positive in my pre-race PCR so no race for me,” he told Sticky Bottle on Friday. “I got corona after my last race in Belgium and unfortunately didn’t test negative in time. At least I’m symptom free and am not contagious anymore, but I can’t start.”
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Ryan had been due to ride the Ruta del Sol with the WorldTour squad last year but a knee problem sidelined him for most of the 2021 season. Now fully recovered, he set his sights on a strong 2022 and recently took sixth on a stage plus seventh overall in the Istarsko Proljeće - Istrian Spring Trophy.
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This helped secure him the slot for the Volta Limburg Classic, but contracting Covid-19 after the Youngster Coast Challenge in Belgium on March 18th has frustrated that goal.
The Belgian race was doubly frustrating for the Jumbo-Visma Development Team competitor as he crashed early on and was a non-finisher. He banged a knee in the fall but fortunately was not affected for long and was able to resume training.
He has now turned his sights towards his next races, namely the Giro del Belvedere on April 18th and the GP Palio del Recioto the following day. “For now I’m just focusing on training for them,” he stated.
The under 23 events are on hilly courses and are the first major targets of the season for the specialist climber.
He joined the Jumbo Visma Development Team prior to the 2020 season, having attracted their attention with results such as victory on the hilly final stage of the Junior Tour of Wales in 2018 plus third overall.
Ryan’s first year went well with several strong performances. These included sixth and seventh on stages plus a fine eighth overall in the 2020 Ronde de l’Isard. However the flareup of a long-running knee issue last spring complicated things and he only had five days of competition in the whole season, all in March.
Ryan’s absence from the Volta Limburg Classic comes in a period of time when the peloton has been affected by high case numbers of Covid 19. On Friday the Israel-PremierTech team said that it would miss Sunday’s prestigious Tour of Flanders Classic due to two positive cases amongst its lineup.
