After the first cobbles of the year in the Belgian opening weekend, Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux will participate in the GP Le Samyn (1.1, 29/02) this Tuesday. The 54th edition of the most Flemish of all Walloon classics offers an almost identical parcours to the one of the preceding editions, in which the colors if the Belgian team shone on the podium the three previous years.
A little more than 200 kilometer have to be covered between Quaregnon and Dour. The first race half brings the riders through open fields towards Frasnez-les-Anvaing before turning back to Dour for three local laps. Each of these laps contains the cobbles of the Côte de la Roquette, the Chemin de Wiheries, the Côte des Nonettes and the Rue de Belle Vue, the last cobbles before the slightly uphill final kilometers.
With last year’s third place in the GP Le Samyn, Andrea Pasqualon offered Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux its first podium of the season in a sprint with strong riders. In the editions of 2019 and 2020, Aimé De Gendt finished on the second step of the podium. Both men will line up alongside Taco van der Hoorn, author of an impressive performance in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne last Sunday. His compatriot Boy van Poppel and the Belgian riders Baptiste Planckaert, Kévin Van Melsen and Loïc Vliegen complete the line up under the direction of Hilaire Van der Schueren and Steven De Neef.
« The GP Le Samyn is one of those difficult semi classics which suit me very well, with very open race tactics on the local laps. It is preferred to have a rider from the team in the front in all stages of the race and to avoid having to lead the chase in the peloton. You really need all seven riders of the team to react to all attacks and we definitely have a good roster for that. After the Belgian opening weekend we can line up with confidence in Quaregnon. I want to be present in the final and hopefully I can finish for the third time on the podium. I felt very good on the cobbles of Omloop het Nieuwsblad last Saturday, but I missed the first group because of bad positioning before the Muur van Geraardsbergen. So I want to grab this new opportunity at the GP Le Samyn! »
