{"id":584782,"date":"2026-04-04T10:21:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T10:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/584782\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T10:21:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T10:21:11","slug":"soudal-boss-backs-stuyven-and-van-baarle-to-make-their-mark-despite-star-studded-tour-of-flanders-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/584782\/","title":{"rendered":"Soudal boss backs Stuyven and Van Baarle to make their mark despite star-studded Tour of Flanders field"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The plan is not to sit back and hope. &#8220;We have to race attractively and be smart. The main thing will be not to miss the big moves, and I think we have the team for that. Despite having four world-class riders, there are always chances in a race that you should not doubt and just go for. You have to have that confidence. In Oudenaarde we will see what the result is,&#8221; Steels said. He also drew comfort from history. &#8220;The race must first be ridden. It is not the first year that a surprise comes out of the box.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Steels also had plenty to say about Remco Evenepoel, his former rider, who makes his <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/tour-des-flandres\" title=\"Tour of Flanders\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tour of Flanders<\/a> debut on Sunday. The sports director is convinced that the Belgian will cause headaches for the other favourites, particularly on the flat and rolling sections between the climbs.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Especially on those in-between sections. You know that if you give him 200 or 300 metres, it is a hell of a job to get him back afterwards. If he goes, it is up to the other three. You cannot leave that to teammates,&#8221; he warned.<\/p>\n<p>And for those who have wondered whether Flanders really suits Evenepoel, Steels has long had his answer ready. &#8220;We have always said: the moment he starts racing in the Tour of Flanders, it will turn out to be a race that suits him well. We will see that on Sunday, I think.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The plan is not to sit back and hope. &#8220;We have to race attractively and be smart. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":584783,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,8396,17833,85,286288,167262],"class_list":{"0":"post-584782","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-remco-evenepoel","12":"tag-soudal-quick-step","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tom-steels","15":"tag-tour-of-flanders"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584782\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}