“We’re really looking forward to coming back to the Vuelta this year, especially after having such a good experience last year. This season we once again come with a balanced squad that includes some debutants and guys with more experience. We hope to be competitive with our young-gun Max, who’s coming back from a challenging year but has shown good legs recently at Vuelta a Burgos. We will support him as he tests himself for the first time in the GC at a Grand Tour," Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Phil West explains to the team's
official website.
Alongside Poole, the other big hope for the team comes in the form of sprinter
Pavel Bittner, who secured the first two wins of his career at the recent Vuelta a Burgos. "We will aim for results in the sprint stages with Pavel as our finisher, who also showed he’s in form at Burgos where he took his first pro win. We want to be engaged in the race from the get-go and try to take our chances where we see them," West continues. "There will be days where we will look for the break, but we will always have a focus on the GC. Some days that might mean we are there to have support up the road, but equally on other days it means we will go hunting for the stage results, but all the time we will keep Max protected."
"After the opening time trial, we have a couple of sprint chances with Pavel before stage four, which should see the GC guys do battle and from there our race will take shape, especially after the end of week one and the tough mountain finish. This will be Max’s first go at GC in a Grand Tour so we’ll keep the pressure low, learn as we go and put in good foundations for the future," West concludes. "We’ve made some positive steps the past week in Burgos, with some really nice results and strong riding as a group, so we will look to continue and build on that over the next three weeks.”
