Lotto Soudal have announced the nine riders that will take to the start of the 100th Giro d’Italia for the team. The first Grand Tour of the year kicks off on Friday 5 May on Sardinia and finishes on Sunday 28 May in Milan.
André Greipel who won three Giro stages last year, will be looking to add to his career total of six Giro stage wins, as the German champion starts the race for the fifth time.
Both Moreno Hofland and Bart De Clercq will be starting the Giro for the third time. In 2011, De Clercq won the sixth stage to Montevergine di Mercogliano, as a neo-pro.
Maxime Monfort has ridden well in the Giro in the past, finishing in the top-15 in the past three years – fourteenth in 2014, eleventh in 2015 and fifteenth in 2016. In the mountains, De Clercq and Monfort can rely on the support of Tomasz Marczynski.
Sean De Bie will start his second Giro next Friday and last year, he sprinted to the fifth place in Turin at the end of the last stage. Jasper De Buyst makes his Giro début, after he rode his first Grand Tour (Vuelta a Espana) in 2015.
Lars Bak is more experienced in riding Grand Tours. This Giro will be his seventeenth Grand Tour and the ninth Giro. In 2012, Bak triumphed in Sestri Levante, where the eleventh stage finished. Last, but not least there’s Adam Hansen. For the Aussie it will be the 24th Grand Tour in his career, the seventeenth consecutive Grand Tour that he can complete and his ninth Giro. In 2013, Adam won the seventh stage in Pescara.
Line-up Lotto Soudal:
Lars Bak
Sean De Bie
Jasper De Buyst
Bart De Clercq
André Greipel
Adam Hansen
Moreno Hofland
Tomasz Marczynski
Maxime Monfort
