On the 25th of August, the third Grand Tour of the year, the Vuelta, takes off. The course of the 73rd edition promises to be the scene of another spectacular three weeks of racing. Lotto Soudal performed strongly last year as the team returned from Spain with four victories, including two stages won by the Polish Tomasz Marczyński, one by the combative Thomas De Gendt, and one by Sander Armée, who became Lotto Soudal’s best ranked rider on the general classification.

The three stage winners will also be at the start in Malaga of this year’s edition: Thomas De Gendt (sixth participation), Tomasz Marczyński (fourth participation), and Sander Armée (fourth participation) hope to repeat last year’s victories and to help the other Lotto Soudal riders in their pursuit of a stage win as well. Tiesj Benoot (first participation), Bjorg Lambrecht (first participation), Maxime Monfort (eight participation), Tosh Van der Sande (fourth participation) and Jelle Wallays (third participation) complete the line-up.

Sports director Mario Aerts comments on the team’s line-up and hopes for another strong performance in this year’s Vuelta.

Mario Aerts: “Last year, Sander Armée not only took a stage win, but also finished nineteenth overall. We hope that Sander is able to achieve another place in the top twenty this year, but we will mainly focus on a stage win. Especially, in the second part of the race there are a couple of stages where he’ll get the opportunity to do so. Tiesj Benoot will be riding his first Vuelta ever. After he was forced to withdraw in the Tour de France, he prepared himself for the following upcoming races. He will be at the starting line without any goals for the GC and we’ll have to wait and see how his shape is at the moment. There are several stages in which he can play a role and animate the race. It would be nice to see him winning a stage, but much depends on how the race will unfold itself. Last year’s scenario was ideal as Team Sky controlled the tour from the beginning, and the escapees got many opportunities.”