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Olav Kooij, Christophe Laporte & Cian Uijtdebroeks headline Team Visma | Lease a Bike's Giro d'Italia lineup
CyclingWednesday, 01 May 2024 at 13:42
Although Team Visma | Lease a Bike have been rocked by injury in the early part of this year, with Wout van Aert's Giro d'Italia debut put on the back burner, the team have still managed to put together a very impressive lineup.
"We are approaching this Giro differently than in previous years", says sports director, Marc Reef in a preview to his team's official website. "This time, we don't have to fight for every metre every day with the GC in mind. It's different from the last six grand tours we did. Then we always started with the GC as our main goal. Our main objective is to win stages. We want to achieve that mainly in the flat sprints with Olav Kooij. We will also not hide in the stages where a breakaway has a good chance of succeeding."
Sprint star Kooij will be one of the favourites in the bunch sprint, whilst through the likes of Christophe Laporte, Jan Tratnik and Attila Valter pose genuine stage hunting threat with Cian Uijtdebroeks the most likely GC option.
"The training camps in Tenerife and Denia were perfect. Jan Tratnik, Robert Gesink and Tim van Dijke were able to put the finishing touches to their form at the Tour de Romandie. That makes us ready," he explains. "Cian can take his chance on the GC. The main thing is to learn. We will see what he can do in the coming weeks. We are confident. We have been working together for a few months now, and we like it very much. We know more and more what we can get from each other."
Team Visma | Lease a Bike for Giro d'Italia 2024
Olav Kooij
Christophe Laporte
Jan Tratnik
Robert Gesink
Attila Valter
Tim van Dijke
Cian Uijtdebroeks
Edoardo Affini
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