Etixx - Quick-Step has announced the selection that will participate in Le Samyn, a 201km Belgian one-day race, which takes place on Wednesday.
"It's a nice race here in Belgium, with tradition," Sport Director Rik Van Slycke said. "Le Samyn follows opening weekend and is an important race for the Belgian race calendar. It's a challenging parcours. There is a big lap of 100 kilometers with a few short climbs, and a local circuit of about 25 kilometers you have to do four times. This four-lap circuit is quite demanding. You have two long sectors of pavé. One of the two is also slightly uphill, so it is quite difficult. Also, the last 5 kilometers is changed for the 2015 edition. There is an additional sector of cobbles, which are uneven and difficult to pass, especially at that point in the race. Immediately upon exiting that sector the parcours is slightly uphill for about 1.5 kilometers until the finish. So probably this last sector of pavé will be decisive and will make it difficult for teams whose ambition is to finish in a bunch sprint. Tomorrow there is also a lot of wind predicted that will make the race even harder. Normally there will be no rain, but you never know in Belgium. In any case we have a good team for this kind of parcours. These guys are really strong, and a few showed already their condition. We can can count on guys like Gianni Meersman and 2014 Paris-Roubaix winner Niki Terpstra, who is in a bit of a natural habitat with cobbles. Guillaume Van Keirsbulck will also be at the start after choosing to recover with stomach problems after Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. He will be of course very motivated, but we will see how he feels during the race."