Giant-Alpecin announces official Giro line-up
Team Giant-Alpecin is the latest team to announce its official nine-rider team for Giro d`Italia 2016. The race will start next Friday on May 6th in Apeldoorn, Netherlands.
It has been confirmed that Tom Dumoulin will definitely be at the start to ride his first Giro d`Italia of his career. He will look to confirm his excellent showing from La Vuelta 2015 where he won two stages, wore the leader`s jersey for six days and finished just outside the top five after a grueling penultimate stage.
Dumoulin will be joined by a strong team with riders who can take their chances in the sprints and also in the breakaways in case opportunities arise.
“I am really looking forward to the Giro d’Italia this year,” Dumoulin said. “It will be my first Giro and with the start in The Netherlands, it is going to be extra special. I think it is going to be a fantastic race to participate in. I will be focusing primarily on the time trials, as they provide a greater opportunity for success.”
Apart from Time Trials and General Classification, Team Giant-Alpecin will also focus on sprints with Nikias Arndt looking to take his chances in the first week. The opportunists in the line-up include Chad Haga (USA), Tobias Ludvigsson (SWE) and Georg Preidler (AUT) who are all capable of getting in the breakaways and fighting for a stage victory as well as performing in the ITT.
Team coach Marc Reef (NED) had his say about the line-up for Giro: “Our target is to go for a stage victory. We’ll have different opportunities in the time trials and the sprint stages. On top of that, we will apply an offensive strategy to aim for stage results from possible breakaways that survive until the finish.”
It will be interesting to see what a versatile team like Giant will be able to get out of this Giro. They are looking to fight on all fronts for stage wins and hope to do so more than once.
Team Giant-Alpecin line-up for Giro d`Italia 2016: Nikias Arndt (GER), Bert De Backer (BEL), Tom Dumoulin (NED), Chad Haga (USA), Cheng Ji (CHN), Tobias Ludvigsson (SWE), Georg Preidler (AUT), Tom Stamsnijder (NED), Albert Timmer (NED).