In a conference call with Sporza.be on Thursday, Thomas de Gendt of Lotto Soudal attempted to psych out his competitors in Sunday's "Virtual Tour of Flanders."

This, of course, was a light-hearted reference to de Gendt's being ruled out of the Zwift race this week for having too much power output, which drew laughter from fellow pro riders on the call: Remco Evenpole, Wout van Art, and Trek Segafredo 's Jasper Stuyven.

The online race, dubbed the "De Ronde 2020 Lockdown Edition," will use the Bkool online cycling platform to recreate the last 32 km of the actual Tour of Flanders course, which Sporza will broadcast.

De Gendt, Stuyven, Evenpole, and Van Aert will also compete, as will Evenpole's Dečuninck-Quick Step teammates Yves Lampert and Zdenek Stival, Van Aert's Jumbo Visma teammate Mike Tunisen, CCC teammates Greg Van Avermaat and Oliver Naessen (AG2R La Mondiale), Sunweb's Michael Matthews and Nicolas Roche, and Tim Wellens, teammate of Lot Soudal of De Gendt, will also compete.

De Gendt was disqualified this week after recording 550 watts of power in a race on the online virtual cycling platform Zwift. Riders' speed is judged by their power-to-weight ratio, and to prevent cheating, or entering a lower weight to go "faster," Zwift sets limits for what is considered realistic power output.

The 33-year-old Belgian took the disqualification humorously, later asking Zwift on social media: "I was removed from the race because of my superhuman power. Can you fix the stats for me?"

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He then told Het Nieuwsblad: "On the climb, I just did the numbers to push more or less in the race. All of a sudden, the game blocked me and neutralized me."

"The numbers weren't that special. For a while I ran at 500-550 watts. That might be unrealistically high for a cycling traveler, but it's more or less normal if you want to win races professionally.

On Thursday, de Gendt, who had a conference call with his rivals for Sunday's online race, lightened the mood with some good old-fashioned trash-talk as the coronavirus crisis continued.

"I hope the [Bkool] system can handle my power," he joked, amusing everyone. I'll test it again today or tomorrow to see if it can handle my wattage."