Mathieu van der Poel, who won a convincing victory at Strade Bianche 12 months ago, will miss this year's race as he continues to recover from a back injury that has sidelined his cyclocross season. The Dutchman is currently training in Spain, and his father, Adrie van der Poel, has admitted that he will not return to competition for at least two more weeks.

Van der Poel has been posting details on Strava of his training rides in the Alicante hinterland over the past two weeks, but it is not yet clear when he will be able to start the road season or if he will be competitive in the cobbled classics.

"He's very enthusiastic about where he is and he's going to be there for two more weeks. So he won't be racing for at least two more weeks," Adrie van der Pol said during an appearance on Sporza's "Extra Time Coors" program on Wednesday night.

"He's been training for three or four weeks now. But that training is not the same as a race where he runs for six hours or more at an average speed of 45 km/h. He is still not hard enough. His last race was the Tour last year. Since then he has been a little sluggish."

Asked if his son could return for Milan-Torino (March 16) or Settimana Coppi e Bartali (March 22-26), Adrie van der Pol replied: "I don't know where to start. There should be little or no pain anymore."

He also said.

Mathieu van der Pol suffered from long-standing back pain in the second half of last season, but he won the Antwerp Port Epic, finished 8th in the World Championships, and finished 3rd in Paris-Roubaix.

However, a rest period before the cyclo-cross campaign did not help the problem: after finishing second in the UCI World Cup in Dendermond on December 26, he abandoned the Superprestige in Heusden-Zolder the following day.

He was then diagnosed with a swollen disc. He was later diagnosed with a swollen disc and returned to work in late January.

"Sometimes he still has reactions," Adrie van der Pol said. 'But what's reassuring is that he says it's nothing like the last few years.'