23 July 2016
IAM Cycling
THE QUOTE
I hope that I can compete with the best, said Dries Devenyns, who won a stage as well as the overall classification at the Baloise Belgium Tour in May. As a team, we will concentrate mostly on winning a stage at the Tour de Wallonie. And as far as that goes, we have multiple options.
THE ROUTE
Stages four and five will be raced nearly entirely in the Ardennes region and can be expected to reflect the style of the Liège-Bastogne-Liège. For the queen stage that will take place on the final day of the race, there will be no fewer than 11 categorized climbs facing the racers. Some of the bergs are less well known than those routinely found in the classics, but they will be just as hard. I know this area. The climbs sometimes take as long as ten minutes. The last two stages will be very hard, Devenyns confirmed.
THE PREPARATION
After I had to abandon the Tour de Suisse, and then was forced to forego starting the Tour de France because I was sick, I feel well again now, the 33 year old Belgian confidently confided. Finally, I feel really good in my training, and I am excited to see how I fare once I get back into racing mode.
THE GOAL
First and foremost, we want to win a stage, explained Thierry Marichal, who will be a directeur sportif at the Tour de Wallonie along with Eddy Seigneur. The first two stages will most likely suit a sprinter. And so we have Jonas Van Genechten and Matteo Pelucchi here racing since they are both very fast guys. In the third stage, that could end with a sprint, though a climb comes quite close to the finish. But then those last two stages are much more suited to the punchy climbers. Here we will focus on Dries Devenyns and Clément Chevrier. They will certainly get to show their stuff, and then we can see what is possible with regards to the overall classification.
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Pictures – BettiniPhoto & IAM Cycling
