Belgian team names its final nine riders for next month’s Grand Boucle
The Belgian OmegaPharma-Lotto team has confirmed its nine-man team for the Tour de France, which starts in Rotterdam, Netherlands in less than two weeks. With previous Grand Tour leader Cadel Evans departed for BMC Racing, the team will now be looking to Jurgen Van den Broeck to improve on his 14th place of last year. The 27-year-old Belgian impressed in a number of mountain stages in last year’s race, and finished 4th in last month’s Critérium du Dauphiné.
The team starts the race without a top-level sprinter but will likely be chasing stage wins wherever possible, particularly when the race passes through Belgium on stages 1 and 2.
Australian Matthew Lloyd won a stage and the mountains jersey at the Giro d’Italia and will no doubt be looking for a similar performance here. Daniel Moreno has been a regular top-20 finisher in his native Vuelta a España and is trying his hand at the Tour for the first time.
Jurgen Roelandts, the 2008 Belgian champion has put last month’s intestinal infection behind him and will likely be contesting the sprint finishes as well as looking for breakaways. Charly Wegelius is one of the most experienced domestiques around, and will doubtless find himself in any number of breaks as he chases that elusive big victory that his career surely deserves.
A name to look out for could be that of 25-year-old Francis De Greef, riding his first Tour de France. The young Belgian has finished 20th and 21st in his two Giros d’Italia, and 21st in his first Vuelta a España, to date.
Missing from the team is French time trial champion Jean-Christophe Péraud. The 23-year-old crashed heavily in the Critérium du Dauphiné earlier this month and was forced to spend 10 days in hospital to recover. He would have likely made the Tour team but, despite now being fully recovered, the enforced lay off from training made his participation impossible.
OmegaPharma-Lotto team for the Tour de France:
Mario Aerts, Francis De Greef, Mickaël Delage, Sebastian Lang, Matthew Lloyd, Daniel Moreno Fernandez, Jürgen Roelandts, Jurgen Van den Broeck and Charles Wegelius
Reserve: Olivier Kaisen
Team directors: Herman Frison, Roberto Damiani and Marc Wauters