Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2026, February 28

[Boehmand]

I have Albert Philipsen winning this one

He's a dark horse to me, but Lidl is bringing a pretty good team with Vacek, Skujins and Kragh, and they might want it to be a "learning experience" for him, rather than throwing him to the wolves in his first try.

But he may be the one they let go in the mid-race break and then anything can happen, because so far he appears to be a generational talent for exactly this type of race.

All realistic signs point to MvdP bossing the race though

 

[Gratemans]

Maybe he knows he's not ready?

Ready for what? It's not like Omloop is some big target for him. Don't know about Belgium but in the Netherlands, there's a pretty big flu epidemic going around. So maybe, this time he actually is sick.
His usual MO is announcing he'll start, say right beforehand he hasn't been feeling 100%, had a bit of the sniffles, and then just goes and race very well anyway, which I find pretty annoying. The fact that he actually isn't starting tells me he's actually sick.