«It's a small world» and this time it's unfortunate to add... sadly. News has arrived from Canada of an accident during training involving 18-year-old Belgian Seff Van Kerckhove who was hit by a car during a training ride. The young rider suffered, according to the Belgian federation, a serious trauma to the upper body and further examinations will be conducted today. He will obviously not compete in tomorrow's junior time trial (Belgium's sole representative will be Vic De Smet) nor in Thursday's road race: in both categories Van Kerckhove, who won bronze in the time trial last year, was among the favorites.

Van Kerckhove will certainly not remember 2026 with pleasure: last winter, in fact, he was already hit by a car while training and suffered a fracture of four vertebrae.