It continues to rain on the already wet situation at Picnic PostNL. Thirtieth in the UCI team rankings and the last World Tour team by number of victories obtained this season (only one), the Dutch formation indeed continues to struggle, as has already happened in recent months, with a series of setbacks for its riders and an infirmary that unfortunately shows no signs of emptying.

Forced to give up previously Timo de Jong, Gijs Leemreize, Nils Eekhoff and Warren Barguil, Iwan Spekenbrink's team currently finds itself without Timo Roosen and Juan Guillermo Martinez, names to which in the very last hours has also been added that of Pavel Bittner.

The Czech sprinter, as communicated through social media channels by his team, crashed during the Classique Dunkerque suffering "a deep cut to the ankle, which required several stitches, and damage to some ligaments of the same", a diagnosis that will force the twenty-three-year-old from Olomouc to spend a period of rest away from the bike to recover properly.

The news could only be received with regret by his team given that Bittner is the one who, so far, has brought them the greatest number of UCI points (485 out of 1210 total), but also three of the seven podium finishes obtained in these first five months of 2026 and six of the fifteen top ten finishes overall achieved.

The loss, therefore, for a team that is not navigating in calm waters and strongly wants to turn around a season that has been anything but brilliant so far, is not insignificant and the hope can only be that Bittner, like the other riders sidelined, can recover as soon as possible to return to making an effective contribution to his team's aspirations.