With just over a week to go until the Grand Départ in Bilbao, the peloton at this year’s Tour de France will take on an action-packed 21 days of racing, where a wide variety of parcours awaits. Team DSM today reveal their exciting eight-rider strong roster who are ready to fight on all fronts.
Getting underway in the Basque country, the proverbial heat will already be on with two challenging days right out of the block as the puncheurs and GC riders are expected to do battle over the tough climbs. The sprinters will get their chances on stage three and on their return to France the following day, before the very non-stereotypical tough early start continues with some hard days in the mountains to follow. The varied parcours continues before the opening week is rounded off with a climb to the top of the mythical Puy de Dôme ascent, where those looking to battle for the yellow jersey will come to the fore. Week two sees the mix of terrain continue as the peloton and race snakes its way from the west of France to the east, and a further flurry of mountains to close the weekend. Racing resumes after the second rest day with the only individual time trial of the event, before some days for the sprinters and breakaway artists while the last two mountain stages will see the GC riders duke it out one last time to decide the destination of the famous yellow jersey. The closing day in Paris gives the sprinters and teams who have braved the challenging three weeks one last shot of glory on the famous Champs-Élysées.
Heading to the race with lots of momentum after strong recent results and team performances, plus a combination of well thought out training plans and other specialist areas, the Men’s program will be rocking their new look as they take on their first race in our beautiful Team dsm-firmenich kit, emblazoned with the distinctive two-stripe design to reflect the team’s Keep Challenging philosophy.
Team DSM coach Matt Winston expressed: “We’re looking forward to getting underway at the Tour de France next week, and we head to the race with the goal of going for the GC and stage results as a team. We’ve got a good strong core GC group that have been working well together over the past few months with Chris, Kevin and Matt, who can support our GC finisher Romain over the mountainous terrain; and they showed in Tour de Suisse that they are in good shape. Likewise, we also have a core sprint group with Alex, John and Nils, with Sam as our sprint finisher for those fast finales. We will work together as one team like always though, with our climbing group supporting the sprint group on those flatter days and vice versa with the sprint group doing early work in the mountains. As for the route, we expect there to be fireworks already in the Basque Country with some difficult opening stages, before potentially a sprint on day three. The route then returns to France and through Romain’s home region, which will of course be special for him, followed by a variety of terrain where we can make our mark as a team throughout the three weeks before the big traditional finish in Paris.”
Line-up
Romain Bardet (FRA)
John Degenkolb (GER)
Matt Dinham (AUS)
Alex Edmondson (AUS)
Nils Eekhoff (NED)
Chris Hamilton (AUS)
Kevin Vermaerke (USA)
Sam Welsford (AUS)
