Ethan Hayter headlines our six-man squad for the five-day event which starts on Wednesday.
One of the two stage races in which our team will be involved this week, the Tour de Luxembourg has a hard and relentless parcours, which promises to test the riders every day. Many climbs, some of them boasting double-digit gradients, are spread over the five stages of the 85th edition, which puts on the table also a demanding 26.3km individual time trial that should reshuffle the general classification ahead of Sunday’s final stage.
Soudal Quick-Step’s roster for the of the Tour de Luxembourg will consist of British ITT Champion Ethan Hayter, James Knox, Casper Pedersen, Pepijn Reinderink, Pieter Serry, and Jasper Schoofs, the 19-year old Belgian who finished an impressive top ten this season at the Giro della Valle d’Aosta as part of our Devo Team.
The Tour de Luxembourg will be Sep Vanmarcke’s first stage race since joining the team as sports director this summer. The Belgian, winner of 2012 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, supported the team from behind the wheel at the Grand Prix de Fourmies, won by Paul Magnier, and now is prepared to take on this role again for this week’s five-day race.
“Luxembourg is always a nice stage race and a pretty demanding one as there’s barely a meter of flat there. We aim for a stage win, but we are also prepared to go on the attack and fight for a good general classification. There are many strong riders at the start, but we too have a solid squad for this week. I am motivated after Fourmies, which was a great race to make my debut as a sports director for Soudal Quick-Step, something that I really enjoyed. I look forward to the next couple of days together with the team and to fighting for some nice results”, said Sep Vanmarcke, who’ll lead the team from the car together with Wilfried Peeters.
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