Things are about to heat up as the team head into the final Grand Tour of the season with ambition and depth!

The final Grand Tour of the season is here, and Lidl-Trek is heading to the Vuelta a España with a squad that’s ready to mix it up across all 21 stages. After a busy season packed with highs, near-misses, and some standout performances, the team is arriving with a bit of everything: the potential for a GC battle, a crew of strong climbers, TT specialists and a man who knows a thing or two about bossing stage wins in Grand Tours this year – Mr. Mads Pedersen! After a dream Giro d’Italia earlier in the year and a week on from winning the Tour of Denmark in a dominant fashion, Mads will be back with the aim of securing the green points jersey and as many stage wins as possible!

This year’s edition kicks off in Turin, Italy and after the opening flat stage, we head straight for the mountains which feels like it’s tailor-made for a team that loves a hard race. With Italian fans lining the roads, the opening stages will feel like somewhat of a home race for our mountains man, Giulio Ciccone, who will hope to continue his rich vain of form following a successful summer of racing after victories at the Clasica San Sebastián and a stage at the recent Vuelta a Burgos.

The road to Madrid will include a wide variety of terrain and thankfully, we’ve got the strength to take on whatever is thrown our way! A Team Time Trial on stage 5 and an individual TT on stage 18 means our proven TT fast-men, Amanuel Gherbreigzabhier and Giro stage winner Daan Hoole, will be licking their lips! Supporting the GC effort is a well-rounded mountain crew. Guys like Andrea Bagioli, Julien Bernard and of course, our Giro stage winning Spaniard Carlos Verona can all climb with the best when the race hits high altitude. But don’t be surprised if they go rogue now and then to chase a stage win of their own. Our Danish road champion, Søren Kragh Andersen will be a key player in helping Mads fight for the points classification jersey.

It’s going to be a hot, hilly, and unpredictable three weeks… and our Team are ready for it!

 

What Cicco is expecting..

It was not an easy time for me after the crash in the Giro. There was, of course, a lot of disappointment but once I saw through that, and believed again that there was the light at the end of the tunnel, I was motivated to come back racing stronger than before. I never expected to win immediately but victory in San Sebastián was something really incredible, and then to follow it up with a stage win at the Vuelta a Burgos just confirmed to me that my shape is where I want it to be.

I’m feeling really happy at this point ahead of the Vuelta a España and I am going there with full confidence in myself and in the team I will be racing alongside. This race is always a special challenge, with difficult terrain, but my focus is to continue this momentum. We know the Vuelta can be unpredictable, but I’m determined to race at my highest level possible and make the most of every opportunity on the journey to Madrid.

Looking to the Vuelta, I’m excited. We have a really strong team, quite similar to the Giro, which was close to perfect. Until he crashed at the Giro, we showed that it worked well combining the stage and points jersey ambitions with Cicco in the mountains. Now at the Vuelta I think we can do the same, but I would love to see him reach all the way to Madrid with a top result.

My first goal is to win some stages, and then hopefully that puts me in a good place for the points jersey. Having all three Grand Tour points jersey won by the team in one year would be the cherry on the top.

My form is good, and the other guys in our team have shown they’re in really good shape too. I think we can go into the Vuelta with a lot of confidence and have some fun.

Lidl-Trek’s Vuelta a España team

Andrea Bagioli (ITA)

Julien Bernard (FRA)

Giulio Ciccone (ITA)

Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier (ERI)

Daan Hoole (NED)

Søren Kragh Andersen (DEN)

Mads Pedersen (DEN)

Carlos Verona (ESP)