Bicycle Racing News and Opinion,
Thursday, December 3, 2015

Back to news and opinion index page for links to archived stories | Commentary

"Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom." - George S. Patton

ASO releases names of Tour of Oman teams

Both the Tour of Qatar and the Tour of Oman will have fewer World Tour teams participating in 2016. In 2015 the Qatar tour had 12 World Tour teams starting and in 2016 there will be nine.

Here are the nine big guys going to Oman: Dimension Data, Giant, Etixx - Quick-Step, BMC, AG2R-La Mondiale, Lampre, Astana, LottoNL and Katusha.

The complete list: AG2R-La Mondiale, Astana, BMC Racing, Bora-Argon 18, CCC Sprandi-Polkowice, Cult Energy, Dimension Data, Drapac, Fortuneo-Vital Concept, Etixx-Quick-Step, Giant-Alpecin, Katusha, Lampre-Merida, LottoNL-Jumbo, Rompoot Oranje Peloton, Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise, Wanty-Groupe Gobert, United Healthcare.

Etixx-Quick Step will race Oman, but weirdly, not Qatar. The team has won Qatar the last four years.

The newly re-started Tour of Valencia, which will run February 3 - 7 is surely contributing to several of the teams preferring to stay in Europe.

Tour of Qatar: February 8 - 12
Tour of Oman: February 16 - 21

Fabian Cancellara wins stage 2 of the 2015 Tour of Oman

Team Sky trains on the 2016 Paris-Roubaix route

It's more than 130 days until the 2016 Paris-Roubaix, but Elia Viviani and several other Sky riders have been training on the Arenberg forest pavé. From there, the team will go to Mallorca for a team training session.

Team Sky in the Arenberg as posted on the squad's Twitter account.

Lotto-Soudal 2016 Women's and U23 teams announced

The team sent me this news:

Later this month at the team presentation, the three Lotto Soudal teams will be officially presented. Today, you already get the overview of the composition of the Ladies team and the U23 team for 2016.

Next season, there will be fifteen Lotto Soudal Ladies. About ten riders left the team, among them the Italian champion Elena Cecchini and Carlee Taylor. Dany Schoonbaert can still rely on Isabelle Beckers, Jessie Daams, Lieselot Decroix, Chantal Hoffmann, Anouk Rijff, Anisha Vekemans and Susanna Zorzi. Also Fenna Vanhoutte stays with the team, she will make the transition to the elite in 2016. Julie Roelandts, who recently won the Flemish Championship cyclocross for 13-year-old aspirants, will be the only youth cyclist in the team next year.

Six new riders join the Lotto Soudal Ladies; including the Belgians Sofie De Vuyst (28) and Lotte Kopecky (20), the French rider Elise Delzenne (26), the South African An-Li Kachelhoffer (28), the German cyclist Claudia Lichtenberg (30) and her current teammate at Liv-Plantur the Dutch Willeke Knol (24).

Lotto Soudal Ladies 2016: Isabelle Beckers, Jessie Daams, Sofie De Vuyst, Lieselot Decroix, Elise Delzenne, Chantal Hoffmann, An-Li Kachelhoffer, Willeke Knol, Lotte Kopecky, Claudia Lichtenberg, Anouk Rijff, Julie Roelandts, Fenna Vanhoutte, Anisha Vekemans and Susanna Zorzi.

Elise Delzenne will be part of the lotto-Soudal team in 2016

The U23 team of Lotto Soudal will consist of 23 riders next year, of which twelve new names. Five riders who leave turn professional in 2016: Laurens De Plus (Etixx - QuickStep), Hayden McCormick (One Pro Cycling), Ruben Pols, Dries Van Gestel and Kenneth Van Rooy (all Topsport Vlaanderen – Baloise). This gives a total of 24 Lotto Soudal U23 riders who became professional in the last five years.

Emiel Planckaert gets his brother Edward on his side next season, who’s starting his third year as a U23 rider. The other new arrivals are all first-year U23. Among them five Belgians who were selected for the World Championships in Richmond in the U19 category: Stan Dewulf, Robbe Ghijs, Bjorg Lambrecht, Thomas Vereecken and Aaron Verwilst.

Lotto Soudal U23 team 2016: Alexandre Braybrooke (new), Jonas Castrique (new), Steff Cras, Kevin Deltombe, Stan Dewulf (new), Robbe Ghijs (new), Michael Goolaerts, Steff Hermans, Mikkel Frølich Honoré (new), Kevin Inkelaar (new), Ward Jaspers (new), Bjorg Lambrecht (new), Senne Leysen, Milan Menten, Edward Planckaert (new), Emiel Planckaert, James Callum Shaw, Mathias Van Gompel, Harm Vanhoucke (new), Joachim Vanreyten, Thomas Vereecken (new), Aaron Verwilst (new) and Enzo Wouters.

Back to news and opinion index page for links to archived stories | Commentary