Team Giant-Alpecin heads to this year’s third and final Grand Tour of the year following successful campaigns at both the Giro d'Italia and this summer’s Tour de France. The main focus for the team will be on day success in the sprint stages. Alongside the sprints the team remains focused on the general development process of our riders.
This year’s Vuelta presents opportunities for different riders to battle for stage wins, over a parcours that features nine summit finishes as the Vuelta celebrates its 70th edition. The race once again gets underway with a team time trial before heading straight into the first uphill finish on day two. The first week continues with both sprint and attacking opportunities as well as a mountain top finish on stage seven.
John Degenkolb returns to the race having won the green jersey of points leader in 2014 and will be looking to make the most of the sprint opportunities over the three weeks. Team Giant-Alpecin has a strong line-up to support Degenkolb in this, but one that is versatile enough to challenge across other fronts. Degenkolb will be joined by Tom Dumoulin who will have an eye on the race’s individual time trial on stage 17 as well as the puncheur-stye finishes, together with Lawson Craddock who showed his progress once again at the Tour of Poland by taking third on the toughest stage of the race.
“Our main goal is to go for stage success with John, as we targeted at the Tour,” explained coach Christian Guiberteau. “With Koen [de Kort], Luka [Mezgec], Zico [Waeytens] and Tom [Dumoulin] we have a strong lead-out for John. With Lawson we are working towards the longer-term development, and will not target specific GC ambitions but rather we aim to help him learn how to behave as GC rider.
“We have shown at the Giro and Tour that we are ready to take any opportunities as they come and on the in-between stages we will look to profit from the breakaway opportunities. In addition we have Tom D here who will look to target the TT along with the classics style stages.
Tom Dumoulin said: "I am at the necessary level to compete for a stage victory, and I will also help my teammates as we pursue our target of winning a stage. John has already proven that he is capable of winning stages here in Spain, so he will be our primary man.
“My personal goal is to get a good result from the time trial in the third week, as well as look for opportunities in the classics-like stages.
“I went to an altitude training camp to prepare after my crash at the Tour. The training in the last weeks went well, but we’ll have to see how the racing goes again. During the first week I will take the opportunity to get the right feeling back.”
American Lawson Craddock added: "Ever since I dropped out of the Vuelta last year, I’ve been looking forward to redeeming myself. I had a strong Tour de Pologne and I want to build on that. I am motivated and we will see what I can do here.
“Personally I want to have a good first two weeks so that I can experience what it takes to be a GC rider, and after that we will see how it comes and make the most out of it.
“I am here to learn and I want to finish. I also want to help John in the sprint stages, which we were quite successful at last year, so I hope we can replicate that."
Source: DSG
