🎥 Not for the faint-hearted, but Lars van der Haar shrugs off gruesome scene - "Not my day"

Sensitive viewers may have cringed during Saturday's Superprestige in Gullegem when Lars van der Haar was suddenly seen kneeling on the ground. The Baloise Glowi Lions rider suffered a dislocated shoulder but calmly reset it himself before continuing.

Van der Haar was making his comeback in Gullegem after a knee injury had sidelined him from races like Besançon, Baal, and Koksijde. Ahead of the January 4th cyclo-cross, he stated that the knee issue was mostly resolved, allowing him to compete in West Flanders.

Initially, the race seemed to be shaping up well for him. Trailing Niels Vandeputte by five points in the Superprestige ranking, Van der Haar’s main focus was on how the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider would perform following his crash on Friday. While Vandeputte struggled at the start, Van der Haar quickly positioned himself among the top five.

For a long time, he hovered around that position, while Vandeputte also couldn't make any immediate moves to get back to the front. However, when Van der Haar was dealing with his shoulder, his Superprestige rival managed to overtake him. "It took a really long time to get it back in," Van der Haar sighed afterward.

As a result, he dropped back to around 11th or 12th place, while Vandeputte moved further to the front and ultimately finished fifth. "I also crashed, so it really wasn’t my day," was Van der Haar’s only, but accurate, conclusion. In 2023, he had a similar issue in Niel, and back then, he resolved it during the race as well—a remarkable feat.

The overall Superprestige victory now seems definitively out of reach for Van der Haar. His deficit to Vandeputte has increased to ten points: 85 to 75.

Video: Lars van der Haar pops his dislocated shoulder back into place during Superprestige Gullegem

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