Tim Merlier will make his final appearance as reigning European Champion in Germany.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s M\u00fcnsterland Giro \u2013 the last German race of the season \u2013 will see the peloton start from Stromberg before tackling five small climbs in the first part of the route, the perfect terrain for a breakaway to form. After leaving behind these hills, the race is set to enter on the flat roads that will take it to the center of M\u00fcnster \u2013 the country\u2019s bicycle capital and the place where the Peace of Westphalia was signed almost four centuries ago.<\/p>\n
For Tim Merlier, it will mark just his third start here, and at the same time, his final outing with the European Champion jersey on his shoulders. During his reign, Merlier won a total of 17 races \u2013 the most recent of which was Omloop van het Houtland, last week \u2013 and the Belgian will look to conclude his time as continental champion with another strong result.<\/p>\n
Tim will rely on a strong Soudal Quick-Step team consisting of Ayco Bastiaens, Yves Lampaert, Bert Van Lerberghe, Jordi Warlop, as well as two riders coming from our feeder squad: Senne Hulsmans, who\u2019s won three races this year, and Matijs Van Strijthem.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe travel to the start of the M\u00fcnsterland Giro with a solid roster as we aim for a bunch sprint with Tim, who\u2019ll wear for the last time this year his beautiful European Champion jersey. There\u2019s some climbing in the first part of the race, but the main difficulty could be the wind, which in the past has altered the dynamic of the race, together with the rain. Regardless of the scenario, we are confident and determined to give everything in order to get a nice result at the end of the day\u201d, explained sports director Dries Devenyns.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Photo credit:\u00a0\u00a9Luc Claessen \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tim Merlier will make his final appearance as reigning European Champion in Germany. Friday\u2019s M\u00fcnsterland Giro \u2013 the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182217,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,76256,82],"class_list":["post-182216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-soudal-quick-step-pro-cycling-team","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182216\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}