The big engines of the peloton will kick-start the high season of the cobbled classics Wednesday at the Flemish semi-classic Dwars door Vlaanderen. Tinkoff-Saxo is at the start with a squad consisting of younger talents and proven riders headed by the Danish trio of Matti Breschel, Michael Mørkøv and Chris Juul-Jensen.
 
Tinkoff-Saxo’s team for Dwars door Vlaanderen consists of Matti Breschel, Michael Mørkøv, Christopher Juul-Jensen, Maciej Bodnar, Nikolay Trusov, Jay McCarthy, Michael Kolar and Juraj Sagan.
 
With the cobblestone races considered a key point during the season for Tinkoff-Saxo, it’s important to get going on a positive note, tells the team’s sports director Tristan Hoffman, who won the race twice in his career – in 1996 and again in 2000, while he rode for Tinkoff-Saxo.
 
“Dwars door Vlaanderen is the first of five big cobbled races in the next intense weeks. We want to perform well and we’re heading to Dwars door Vlaanderen with the ambition of finishing in the top five or higher. Matti Breschel, who won the race in 2010, is our captain together with Michael Mørkøv and Chris Juul-Jensen, who’ll also get a protected role”, says Tristan Hoffman and adds:
 
“Bodnar has equally shown that he’s in a strong shape and a fast guy like Kolar could also come into play, if the race ends up in a bigger group sprint. Dwars door Vlaanderen is a quite unpredictable race and it can be decided in multiple ways. Sometimes, we’ve seen a single rider taking the win, just like in 2010 with Matti, and on other occasions the race has been decided in a bunch sprint. We have to create a hard race but at the same time it’s not up to us to take full responsibility”.

Unpredictable race
Matti Breschel obviously has good memories of the Belgian semi-classic from 2010. Since then, the Dane hasn’t participated in the race but he returns poised and ready for the cobblestone season with Tinkoff-Saxo.
 
“The team’s ambition is to win, but that’s easier said than done. Dwars door Vlaanderen marks the beginning of our cobblestone season, where it’s no secret that we’ve set some big goals”, notes Breschel. “Right now, my focus is on Milano-Sanremo and then we’ll see how I feel come Wednesday after 293km of racing in Italy. So I look at Dwars door as an ideal opportunity to find my race rhythm on the cobbles and, of course, if there’s an opening, then it would be stupid not to seize it”.

Matti Breschel adds that the Flemish race, which features the punishing Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg, is an opportunity for several teammates to ride their own chances.
 
“Peter Sagan will first join the team at E3 Harelbeke, so riders like Michael Mørkøv will get the chance to seek out a personal result. I know that Michael has been looking forward to Dwars door Vlaanderen and he seems to be going really well at the moment. I think we have different cards to play dependent on how the race evolves. In these races, a lot comes down to the weather and the wind, so we’ll see how it all plays out once we hit the cobbles. But one thing is for sure, I expect it to develop into a real Wild West kind of race”.