The Italian national champion was one of the favourites for Sunday's Tour of Flanders but did not ride after being struck by a temperature and stomach virus. He returned to Italy to recover and reportedly trained for two hours on Monday, leading to the decision to ride the flat Scheldeprijs race near Antwerp.
"I rode my bike for the first time on Sunday but I still wasn't fully recovered. Yesterday and today I rode for a couple of hours and I think I'm feeling better," Pozzato said.
"It won't be easy to find the same form I had before, but I hope to be competitive at Paris-Roubaix. I'm going to ride the GP Escaut (the French name for Scheldeprijs) to test myself in a race and understand if I can quickly get back to my best."
The full Katusha team for the Scheldeprijs is: Filippo Pozzato, Robbie McEwen, Stijn Vandenbergh, Maxime Vantomme, Laszlo Bodrogi, Denis Galimzyanov, Mikhaylo Khalilov and Nikolai Trusov.
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