Bardet isn't the only hope of success for the team in the coming weeks though. Through Dutch powerhouse
Fabio Jakobsen, they also hope to present in the sprints. “As usual, it will be another challenging three-week route around Italy with a mix of terrain awaiting us. We head to the Giro with a squad who have shown in recent races that they are in good form and the morale is high within the group. We have ambitions of top stage results in the sprints with Fabio as our finisher, where the sprint group has shown great progress in the recent Tour of Turkey," sports director Matt Winton explains.
With the likes of
Tobias Lund Andresen, fresh off the back of three stage wins in Turkey, Chris Hamilton,
Gijs Leemreize,
Julius van den Berg, Bram Welton and
Kevin Vermaerke, there is plenty of quality for the team to lean on. "We aim to ride the best GC possible with Romain as our finisher there, while also looking for our opportunities to be in the fight for stage wins and top results on the hilly and mountainous terrain too," Winton concludes. "To achieve these goals, we will need to work well as a group throughout the race, riding as a unit and giving everything for each other over the three weeks; so that we can show ourselves at the front of proceedings.”
