“We are doing well and there is a positive spiral” - Lotto Dstny DS Kurt Van de Wouwer optimistic ahead of Ardennes Classics campaign

With the cobbled Classics set to conclude this weekend at Paris-Roubaix, the focus is beginning to switch to the Ardennes Classics later this month. After a difficult Classics season so far for the Lotto Dstny team, with Florian Vermeersch and Arnaud De Lie absent for most of the races, they still manage to salvage victories at both the Grand Prix Criquielion and the Grote Prijs Jean-Pierre Monseré.

With the Ardennes Classics looming though, they will be hoping for a big turnaround with the likes of Andreas Kron, Maxim van Gils and Lennert Van Eetvelt set to lead the line for the team in the hilly one-day races.

In an interview with In de Leiderstrui, Lotto Dstny’s sports director Kurt Van de Wouwer evaluated the season so far ahead to the upcoming races, which begin with De Brabantse Pijl next week, as he said “broadly speaking, we are doing well and there is a positive spiral, even at times when our two major spearheads Vermeersch and De Lie have disappeared in favor of the Flemish classics”.

On the form of the team’s leaders in the lead-in to these races, Van de Wouwer went on to say “Maxim fell in the first stage of Catalunya, but he has now made his return in the GP Miguel Indurain. So that should be possible. Andreas Kron has already run his first kilometres, so that will also be fine against the Walloon classics. Van Eetvelt is a more difficult case, he is coming back from knee problems and that will not be long”.