Wilco Kelderman and Robert Gesink will lead team LottoNL-Jumbo in La Flèche Wallonne on Wednesday in Belgium. The goal is deliver a strong team performance and take home a top result.

“Enrico Battaglin, Bert-Jan Lindeman and Sep Vanmarcke stood out in the Amstel Gold Race,” Sports Director Merijn Zeeman said. “We were convincingly as a team, but didn’t reward ourselves with a top result. That has to be different on Wednesday and we’re expecting to be able to do better. Of course, we’re competing with the best riders in the world and on the Mur de Huy, there are many contenders. We’re confident Wilco Kelderman and Robert Gesink will be two of them. They can compete for top results.”

‘A top 10 result’

 Wilco Kelderman gives himself more chances in La Flèche Wallonne than he had in the Amstel Gold Race. “First of all, you have to be strong enough for a classic race, but you need a little bit of luck as well,” the Dutch climber explained. “The Mur de Huy is a climb that suits me well. I’m aiming for a top 10 result.”

“Wilco finished 10th, last year,” Zeeman continued. “He is still a young rider, so I think that it’s too modest to aim for another 10th place. I’m expecting him to perform better than he did last year. The way we rode the Amstel Gold Race as a team was much better than we did in 2015. We’re developing ourselves and we want to take the next step now. We want to see Robert and Wilco approach the Mur de Huy convincingly.”

Line-up:

Enrico Battaglin, Victor Campenaerts, Koen Bouwman, Robert Gesink, Wilco Kelderman, Bert-Jan Lindeman, Paul Martens and Alexey Vermeulen.

Sports Directors:

Frans Maassen and Merijn Zeeman.