"We will once again skip the Giro, even if I had desire to start" - Lotto Dstny forfeit Giro d'Italia wildcard as the team is not ready to take on three Grand Tours
Cycling
The most successful ProTeam of the 2024 season, Lotto Dstny, will not participate at the Giro d'Italia also in their third (and last) season at PRT level.
"There will only be 25 of us next year, there were 28 of us this year. Obviously, the calendar is a little reduced and adapted to our abilities," CEO Stéphane Heulot explains to Cyclism'Actu. "We will once again skip the Giro, even if I had this desire at the beginning of the year to be able to start the return to the WorldTour by trying to chain the three Grand Tours."
Therefore Lotto Dstny will only tackle the Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana in 2025. Especially for the French Grand Tour, the ambitions are high with both stars Arnaud De Lie and Lennert Van Eetvelt projected to be at the start.
Rocking the National champion jersey, De Lie finished in the top-5 of sprint five times, including two third places. Not a bad debut but Heulot believes the race wasn't really cut out for the Walloon. "Arnaud De Lie is not a pure sprinter so I want to say that the more bumpy it is, the better. Obviously, I'm talking about the finish, not in the mountains. Things were done in such a way that it broke up the peloton a little, so I think Arnaud is one of the sprinters capable of getting through these difficulties."
Heulot's also very optimistic about his mountain leader Van Eetvelt who had to battle through several health setbacks in 2024. "We also have Lennert Van Eetvelt, who we hope will be spared in 2025 from all the injuries he had, because despite that, he still won two WorldTour stage races this year. He will make his debut in the Tour de France, to aim for the general classification, I don't know, probably more to discover and try to go for the targeted stages."
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- Nonsense Mistermaumau. Tom has noticeably more character and personality than Mathieu. Look at the photograph with this article - when was the last time you saw Mathieu crack a smile like that?RupertBear17-12-2024
- Get over yourself! Tom is fine, he's quite a character in his way - he's got a great sense of humour for a start. Watch him and Matt Stephens do one of their cafe rides, they're both a hoot. I don't mind Mathieu, but he's a bit of a cold fish in case you haven't noticed. You guys make me laugh, you get a unique rider like Tom appears on the scene and all you can do is bitch! By the way Senna, your use of a comma and then the lack of a space between words is usually an indicator of ASD. Now I'm being bitchy!RupertBear17-12-2024
- Whining isn’t a good look, Lance. Oh and doping or not, the GOAT is still Eddy Merckx imho - lance couldn’t t even come close when you compare resultsCrashjames16-12-2024
- * not taking anything away from the tireless sacrifices wout has made as a superstar. those are two extraordinary individuals.OCexile16-12-2024
- sadly true. mathieu is the bedrock AD was built on, and he’s always shouldered that role and always seen the bigger picture: took MUCH less money than he could have gotten while the team was growing, and has written them new book on what it means to be a completely selfless superstar, witness every ferocious leadout for jasper and what he did at MSR last year. yup, so far that’s not thomas.OCexile16-12-2024
- ...you could also add diminuer,etiquette,basic PR skills and respect all of which Pidcock lacks in abundance.Senna196016-12-2024
- Just like Remco should have ;-)Mistermaumau16-12-2024
- And you base that on which vast amount of knowledge you have on him please?Mistermaumau16-12-2024
- Not only that but what MVDP did at AD had a lot to do with a personality that TP will never have.Mistermaumau16-12-2024
- i mean, duh, the ONLY reason for pidcock to be at Q36.5 is freedom and autonomy. vande velde has kind of an art for the obvious. but as far as the “you should do what van der poel did” advice goes, well, I’LL state the obvious: doing what mathieu did KINDA depends on being ABLE to do what mathieu did. if it didn’t then yeah, that would really be some terrific advice.OCexile16-12-2024