{"id":534256,"date":"2026-04-16T14:44:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T14:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/534256\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T14:44:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T14:44:09","slug":"i-wont-have-the-best-legs-uae-team-emirates-xrg-have-tim-wellens-back-from-broken-collarbone-just-in-time-for-the-ardennes-classics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/534256\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I won\u2019t have the best legs’ \u2013 UAE Team Emirates-XRG have Tim Wellens back from broken collarbone just in time for the Ardennes Classics"},"content":{"rendered":"

UAE Team Emirates-XRG will have Tim Wellens<\/a> back among their ranks as he returns to competition on Friday at De Brabantse Pijl, having recovered from the broken collarbone he suffered in March<\/a> just in time for the Ardennes Classics.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m looking forward to my first race back after the crash \u2013 it took quite a long time before I was back. I was 3 weeks off the road in total and lost quite a bit of condition. I\u2019ve been able to build up some form but feel like I\u2019m still far from my best shape,” said the Belgian on the team’s website.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

“I have great memories from Brabantse Pijl since my victory in 2018 \u2013 it\u2019s a race that suits me. I\u2019m also very happy to show my national jersey again in Belgium. I won\u2019t have the best legs but I\u2019ll do my best to work for the team as I build up for the goals ahead.”<\/p>\n

Article continues below <\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Wellens crashed out of the cobbled Classics heavily during Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, leaving Tadej Poga\u010dar without his right-hand man<\/a> for Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix.<\/p>\n

He won three of them even without the Belgian national champion, but UAE are bolstered heavily by Wellens’s return to racing, and he will play a crucial role in the Amstel Gold Race this coming Sunday.<\/p>\n

World Champion Poga\u010dar<\/a> will not be racing there to try and avenge his shocking loss in the Netherlands’ biggest race from last season<\/a>, where he was reeled in by Remco Evenepoel<\/a> (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek), with his focus fully on the next Monument, Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge instead.<\/p>\n

2018 winner Wellens will start Brabantse Pijl alongside another former winner for UAE, Beno\u00eet Cosnefroy, who joined the squad for 2026, with Filippo Baroncini, Mikkel Bjerg, Luca Giaimi, Florian Vermeersch and Gen Z rider, Matteo Vanden Wijngaert as support.<\/p>\n

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

For the Amstel Gold Race two days later, UAE’s squad features five riders from Friday’s team: Baroncini, Bjerg, Cosnefroy, Giaimi, and Wellens, with two climbers joining for the Dutch race’s tougher parcours: Felix Gro\u00dfschartner, and Pavel Sivakov.<\/p>\n

UAE are without several of their talents for the Ardennes, with Isaac del Toro, Jan Christen and Jhonatan Narv\u00e1ez all still out due to injury, but with Poga\u010dar, they will still be the favourites to win in Li\u00e8ge in 10 days.<\/p>\n

Following his hit out in the Ardennes, Wellens will again play a crucial support role for Poga\u010dar at the Tour de France<\/a>, where UAE will be chasing a record-equalling fifth yellow jersey with their superstar Slovenian.<\/p>\n

Get unlimited access to our unrivalled 2026 Spring Classics coverage with a Cyclingnews subscription. We’ll bring you breaking news, reports, and analysis from some of the biggest races on the calendar, including Amstel Gold Race, La Fl\u00e8che Wallonne, and Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge. Find out more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UAE Team Emirates-XRG will have Tim Wellens back among their ranks as he returns to competition on Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":534257,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-534256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/534257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}