After Wout van Aert’s exit on Friday morning, Visma-Lease a Bike have been further depleted at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, losing two riders to illness ahead of stage 7.

Jørgen Nordhagen, who climbed impressively on Friday’s opening mountain stage, is a non-starter on Saturday’s stage, and the same goes for the Classics specialist Per Strand Hagenes.

“Both riders developed symptoms of illness overnight,” read a statement from Visma-Lease a Bike. “We wish Per and Jørgen a speedy recovery.”

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The news is a blow for the team’s US leader, Matteo Jorgenson, as he fights for the podium in the weekend’s blockbuster mountain finale.

With seven riders at the start of the race, Visma are down to four, leaving Jorgenson without much support and without his closest ally in the mountains.

Nordhagen, the 21-year-old Norwegian climber who was an impressive fourth at the Tour de Romandie last month, had done much of Friday’s final climb alongside Jorgenson, finishing 13 seconds behind his leader and ahead of a number of other GC candidates.

There have been reports of widespread illness at the race formerly known as the Critérium du Dauphiné, with Movistar boss Eusebio Unzué talking of a flu outbreak as he also lost several riders.

The Armirail GC factor

Jorgenson has three teammates left by his side: the British puncheur Ben Tullett, the Italian rouleur Adoardo Affini, and the French all-rounder Bruno Armirail.

Armirail is the most interesting of those teammates, given he rose to second overall after Friday’s breakaway antics produced some surprising and potentially significant changes on GC.

Armirail is 1:22 ahead of fourth-placed Jorgenson, who, himself, thanks to Visma’s team time trial win, still has 32 seconds in hand on pre-race favourite Paul Seixas (Decathlon CMA CGM).

The Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes intensifies on Saturday with a double ascent of the Grand Colombier, before finishing with a bang on Sunday’s explosive four-col mountain stage.

“When you see the parcours that’s coming up, it’s going to be very, very complicated,” Armirail said of a possible personal GC bid. “Even if I get over climbs well, I’m not a pure climber. Matteo is the priority.”

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