Defending champion Kirsten Wild will miss Sunday's Women's World Tour Ghent-Wevelgem after testing positive for COVID-19, her Ceratizit-WNT team announced late Saturday.

Wilde's absence follows one player on the Alé BTC Ljubljana team testing positive.

However, the Serratizit-WNT team announced that Wilde's positive test came on the Friday before she joined the Ghent-Wevelgem race bubble and that their participation would not be affected.

"Unfortunately, I will not be able to defend my title in Ghent-Wevelgem due to my positive test for COVID-19 on Friday, October 9," Wilde said on the team's Facebook page. 'The first COVID-19 test I took on Monday, October 5, was negative, but the second test was positive.'

"I am very sorry for my absence and sorry to the team. Luckily, the results came back before I left for the team bubble, which I left after the Giro Rosa on September 19, so it won't affect the team bubble tomorrow.

"So far things are going "relatively" well and I will focus on recovering 100% in isolation."

Wilde became the third pro cyclist to test positive on Friday, following Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott), who withdrew from the Giro d'Italia after testing positive for coronavirus after showing mild symptoms on Friday. Jan Bakelants (who will be competing in Ghent-Wevelgem from Circus Wantigover) also showed symptoms after training on Friday and was found to be infected with the virus.