The battles over the cobbles and hills have come and gone, the early forays and skirmishes in the weeklong stage races have produced exciting action, and now the peloton awaits one of the toughest tests on the cycling calendar – the Giro d’Italia.
Steeped in history as high as the many mountains it traverses, this year’s edition of La Corsa Rosa is no different and provides some terrain that everyone in the peloton should find to their liking. Spread over 21 stages it includes three time trials, flatter terrain which should favour the fast men in the bunch, hilly terrain which will tempt those breakaway artists or sprinters who can hang tough, and brutally demanding mountain stages where the best climbers will duke it out.
Continuing to build on a solid start to the year with some good early season racing and well-designed training plans, Team DSM head to the start line on the east coast of the country in Fossacesia, adorned in their distinctive two-striped jersey and ready to get stuck into what should be an exciting 21 days of racing.
Speaking about the goals for the Giro, Team DSM coach Matt Winston said: “As we look to the 106th Giro d’Italia we see another challenging course around Italy. We head there with a good team that will focus purely on day results. For the sprint days we bring a strong block with Marius, Alberto and Niklas; who we believe can work really well together. On the breakaway days we will look to our climbing guys such as Andreas and Harm to seek out the right moves so we can race for those top stage results. To achieve these goals, we will need to work well as a team and do it together as a unit, this is where our focus is and remains to be so that as soon as we reach kilometre zero, we can be directly in the race and show ourselves.”
Line-up:
Alberto Dainese
Jonas Iversby Hvideberg
Andreas Leknessund
Marius Mayrhofer
Niklas Märkl
Florian Stork
Martijn Tusveld
Harm Vanhoucke
