After putting in a solid performance in defence of his Milan-Sanremo title, Gerald Ciolek is now ready for his cobbled classics campaign which culminates when his MTN-Qhubeka team make their Tour of Flanders debut. Today he lines up as an outsider for the E3 Harelbeke.

Today will mark another important day in the Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung race calendar as they take on yet another world tour race, the E3 Harelbeke. The Belgian classic is certainly one of the toughest classics as it contains 17 Hellingen climbs that will certainly test the resilience of the riders.

Many of the same roads and climbs that will be used in Ronde van Vlaanderen, also form part of today’s E3 Harelbeke. This makes the E3 Harelbeke the ideal test for the World Tour teams hoping to claim victory in next week’s monument and ensures a very high level of racing will be on display today.

It will be the first participation of Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung at the E3 Harelbeke and confidence is high among the squad after a good showing at the Milano-Sanremo. There is no doubt the team be up for the challenge against the big World Tour teams and the 4 South African riders starting will relidh the opportunity.

"At Dwars Door Vlaanderen things weren’t looking too good for us with very few riders able to start, yet we performed okay with Songezo [Jim] in the break," sports director Jens Zemke said. "Things are looking much better for us this weekend though with a full squad of riders.

"We have 2 important weeks now that are certainly a highlight of our season. Gerald knows about his leadership role in our team and we will look to him in the next races as he is ready."

Line-up:

Gerald Ciolek, Kristian Sbaragli, Jay Robert Thomson, Jaco Venter, Johann Van Zyl, Ignatas Konovalovas, Andreas Stauff, Songezo Jim