Less than three weeks before the Grand Départ of the Tour de France in Düsseldorf, Wanty-Groupe Gobert reveals a first part of his selection. Seven riders are sure of their participation in the 104th Tour de France, the first for our team. These seven riders are Frederik Backaert, Thomas Degand, Guillaume Martin, Marco Minnaard, Yoann Offredo, Guillaume Van Keirsbulck and Pieter Vanspeybrouck. For all of these riders it will be their first participation in the Tour. The other two names will be announced later this month.



Hilaire Van der Schueren:



"We made our selection based on riders who are capable of keeping up three weeks. We have riders for all kinds of stages. Guillaume Martin and Thomas Degand aim for the mountains, as in the Dauphiné where the team delivered a magnificent performance. Guillaume Van Keirsbulck will hopefully be our man for the time trials. Pieter Vanspeybrouck sprinted top 20 in the Dauphiné, and we will try to do even better in the Tour. Frederik Backaert showed that he could be our man in the breakaways. Marco Minnaard deserves his selection because he always served the collective. In addition, he has a good Dauphiné in the legs. And Yoann Offredo rode a great classics spring. Afterwards he shifted his focus to Le Tour. "