Decathlon CMA CGM Team has confirmed that Tiesj Benoot has undergone surgery for a lumbar disc herniation after back pain disrupted his winter preparation. The operation was described as successful by the team’s medical director Jacky Maillot, with Benoot now entering a rehabilitation phase and any return to racing dependent on how his recovery progresses.
Benoot’s own message underlined the scale of the setback. “It’s a real disappointment for me to miss the Classics for the first time in my career,” he said, adding that he would be “the first supporter” of his team-mates from home and that he is “extremely motivated” to return at a higher level than before.
Why this injury is so disruptive for a Classics rider
A lumbar disc herniation is not simply a case of losing fitness while you wait for a bone to heal. It sits at the centre of a rider’s ability to produce power repeatedly, hold posture on the bike, and tolerate vibration and impact. For a rider who normally targets the Spring Classics, that last point is especially important because the cobbles and rough roads do not just demand strength, they punish the body for hours.
Even when riders can get back onto the trainer relatively quickly, the harder part is rebuilding the resilience needed for real racing. Training can be controlled: smooth roads, steady efforts, and carefully managed intensity. The Classics are the opposite. They involve constant micro-accelerations, sudden changes in pace, and long periods of bracing and stabilising the body as the bike skips across uneven surfaces. If the lower back is still sensitive, those demands can become a limiting factor long before the legs are ready to give way.
That is why Benoot’s statement about missing the Classics reads like more than disappointment. It is an acknowledgement that this is not the kind of injury you can rush through with a couple of “good days” on the turbo. The risk is not only pain. It is the knock-on effect on nerve function, stability, and the ability to train consistently enough to arrive at the start line with confidence.
What Decathlon CMA CGM have said, and what they have not
The team’s wording is cautious in a way that is typical for injuries with variable recovery timelines. They have confirmed that back pain affected Benoot’s training, that the medical staff diagnosed a lumbar disc herniation, and that surgery has now been completed successfully. They have not offered a target return date, and the key line is that his return to racing will be decided “depending on the evolution” of his recovery.
That matters because it frames this as a rehabilitation-led timeline rather than a calendar-led one. A collarbone fracture often invites a simple “six weeks” conversation. A disc problem does not. Two riders can have the same procedure and end up with very different pathways back, depending on symptom relief, how quickly they can rebuild strength and mobility, and whether they can add intensity without recurrence.
What this likely means for his early 2026 season
Benoot has effectively taken the Classics block off the table by saying he will miss them. That removes him from the stretch of racing where he typically excels and where his value is often felt most strongly inside a team, even when he is not the final finisher. In the Spring Classics, Benoot’s role is often to make the race hard, cover dangerous moves, and remain present deep into the finale when the race becomes selective and chaotic. It is a style of racing built on robustness, repeated efforts, and calm decision-making under pressure.
With a back injury that has already required surgery, it is difficult to see how that kind of workload would be the first place you choose to test the limits of recovery. The more realistic approach is to return when he can train consistently for a sustained period, then layer higher intensity, then finally reintroduce race stress. The keyword there is “consistent”. A stop-start build is what delays form most, and it is often what teams try hardest to avoid after injuries that affect posture and load-bearing.
The tactical cost to the team
From Decathlon CMA CGM’s perspective, this is not just the loss of an individual. It is the loss of a specific type of rider. Benoot is valuable because he can influence the race in ways that are difficult to replace: long efforts on rolling terrain, the ability to survive when the peloton is split, and the confidence to commit to decisive moments rather than simply react to them.
In Classics racing, the absence of a rider like Benoot tends to narrow the range of scenarios a team can play. It becomes harder to cover moves without burning through support riders early. It becomes harder to race proactively when the wind, the road furniture, and the positioning battles are forcing constant decisions. Even if a team still arrives with strong leaders, the depth of control changes when you remove one of the riders most capable of stabilising the chaos.
