"A mix of young and experienced riders" for Soudal - Quick-Step at Tour Down Under as Belgian team chase stage wins
Cycling
The Tour Down Under gains more and more form as another team confirm it's lineup. Soudal - Quick-Step is keeping it's stars in Europe, however it will be hunting stages in Australia to start off the season.
“The Tour Down Under has a parcours with a little bit of everything for everyone: sprinters, puncheurs and climbers," DS Geert van Bondt said in a press release. "The two stages for the general classification will be demanding ones, so we should see some proper fireworks there. We go to Australia with a good team – a mix of young and experienced riders – and with a lot of motivation, because we aim for a strong start to the season. We’ll take it one stage at a time, try to seize any opportunity and see what Junior can do in the GC”
The team futures two of it's new signings in Pascal Eenkhoorn and also Andrea Raccagni who came from the development team. The team will be backing up Casper Pedersen as a possibility for the sprints specially on the tricky hilly days, whilst William Lecerf Junior should have the best chances for the overall classification. The team has quite a lot of firepower for the hilly days with James Knox, Pieter Serry and Antoine Huby also part of the lineup.
Soudal - Quick-Step for 2025 Tour Down Under:
James Knox
Antoine Huby
William Lecerf Junior
Pascal Eenkhoorn
Andrea Raccagni
Pieter Serry
Casper Pedersen
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Australia, here we come 😁
— Soudal Quick-Step Pro Cycling Team (@soudalquickstep) January 12, 2025
Excited to give you our team for the first race of the year - @tourdownunder ✌️
Photo: @BeelWout pic.twitter.com/wZgRjNRD6V
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- But no-one is interested in slower, many would like safer so unless they can show that e.g. youth races are safer, it IS useless. It’d be more efficient to electronically limit everyone’s power output at steep gradients (down of course) or specified sections, am sure technically it isn’t that complicated or expensive but there’d be an outcry so forget it.Mistermaumau12-01-2025
- Agreed, as said here and has been superficially discussed before, it is the whole peleton and race that has gotten faster, the very best like these three, are still only winning by the same margins as elsewhere in history, they haven’t discovered any new distinguishing product. I mean, if an ageing Cavendish, Thomas and others can still deliver sometimes, nothing much can be going on.Mistermaumau12-01-2025
- Yes, but then again, unlike some, they are not presented with a list of questions to prepare answers and journalists keep the prerogative to reassemble quotes in whatever order makes a story so in many cases we have no context of in which situation/relation he said it. I think, as I’ve implied before, people should revert to taking more time to try and get the feel of what or why someone is saying to get the broad view as opposed to focusing on a detail. I know people love the short and cool statements found on SM but they rarely lead to constructive discussion, reflection or understanding, just impulsive reactions which is great for revealing someone’s feelings but says little about the background that created them.Mistermaumau12-01-2025
- I think in his case it might just be lack of mental coaching. He had a great run and it’s gone without visible reasons. 2023? 2024? Blaming others but achieving nothing when allowed to reorganise, somehow it’s not so surprising he’s looking for a team. Am sure he could still mix it occasionally but he needs someone to change his attitude. Going back to tattoos, another interesting and revealing characteristical observation, if you discount cultural and gang related markings, you’ll find more tattoos per person in sport when they are strength types as opposed to endurance. And as news is slow or predictable, here’s another to reflect on (not going to discuss it further here), when you look at types of drink rubbish strewn around in nature (and ignore alcohol induced behaviour), you’ll find a huge disproportion between discarded soft/energy drinks and milk/water/juice. A logical person might imagine that has to do with quantity yet ironically much more milk/water/juice based drinks are sold than energy/soft.Mistermaumau12-01-2025
- Pure power, pure talent and a very good support has come to this day.
James2631812-01-2025 - sure, i totally get that he’s incredibly promising. that would be a great thing to say, “WOW, this kid has a great engine and massive potential, so much he makes me think of a young wout van aert!” i get it though, merlier isn’t a professional spokesman. it’s not his job to always say the right thing. someone shoved a microphone in his face and asked him about young guy he’s really excited to ride with. that’s cool. all good, tim. all i’m saying is in an ideal world he might have said something other than that the 20 year old is A LOT FASTER than one of the greatest racers of this generation.OCexile12-01-2025
- Can’t say for sure it would be safer, but we can say for sure it would be slowermobk12-01-2025
- That a very plausible explanation why some of them have tattoos. I'm not aware of such behaviour because I don't follow other sports. Thanks for the explanation even though it may not apply to all scenarios.
KerisVroom12-01-2025 - You realise that’s an extremely ambiguous expression right but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt:-) It may not hold at this level but a lot of guys in sport “offer” themselves a tattoo (the Ironman logo is an extremely popular example) for reaching their personal goal, which can turn into a reason the lose motivation for lack of having another. Obviously Mr X doesn’t have this attitude, more prone to act as to warrant such perspicacious James Bond titles like The world is never enough, but most of us at some point become happy or satisfied with what we’ve achieved or our mind resigns itself to not believing we can attain more and just lose the will to go further in THAT direction. But the again, I don’t recall Froome having any so who knows ;-)Mistermaumau12-01-2025
- Pretty much sums it up. Races today are often fast from the go as many know it’s their only chance of an upset. GTs are basically fast EVERY day now, whereas in the past there were stages you’d consider asking your money back (if it was a paying sport) so slow and uneventful were they. One of numerous reasons the average speeds jumped up, that doesn’t necessarily mean anyone is speeding downhill any faster, even Pidcock with a huge chainring is going to brake before a bend, it’s not the top speed that matters, it’s your racing experience that knows what the limit is for each situation and many just don’t have enough of this experience for the races they’re doing or no longer care collectively like in the past with its unwritten rules of the peleton. The prize money and cutthroat employment market is also leading to more risk/reward acceptance among the peleton as a whole.Mistermaumau12-01-2025