While the team's main sprinters have been chasing stage wins in the Tour de France, some of the biggest talents on the Giant-Shimano roster have been training at altitude. The team hopes that the camp will allow them to perform strongly in races like the Vuelta and the Tour de Pologne.

While the Tour de France has been taking centre stage of late, preparations for the latter half of the season are well underway for other riders in the team. Seven of the youngest riders in the WorldTour team have spent three weeks at high altitude training camp preparing for the Tour of Poland, La Vuelta a España and the other races to come.

For three riders it is a first time at high altitude camp, Warren Barguil, Tobias Ludvigsson and Daan Olivier, while they are joined by Nikias Arndt, Chad Haga, Reinardt Janse van Rensburg and Georg Preidler.

“It was interesting to see how some of the guys would react to hard training at high altitude but they’ve all adapted well and are looking good,” said Team Giant-Shimano trainer Adriaan Helmantel.

“It has been a good mix of endurance rides, climbing work, time trialing both as a team and individually, as well as core stability work. It is good to build up again here together after a short break from training and racing for the guys. Nikias and Reinardt have also been doing a bit more specific sprint training and everyone has worked hard.”

The riders are staying at Les Balcons de Belle Plagne, in the Alps at over 2,100m altitude together with a selection of support staff to look after them over the course of the training camp. The riders have one apartment while the staff stay in another.

“We picked this area as we wanted somewhere at over 2000m altitude with good options for training too,” Helmantel continued. “The region is really good with long flat sections in the valley to work on specifics down there, and different climbs to work on including the 20km climb back up to the accommodation – I rode the climb and at over 8% average gradient it was tough!

“Everyone has been training really hard here but also relaxing and spending some good time together as a team. The atmosphere has been really nice and it has been a good way to bond.”

As well as Helmantel, there is a mechanic and soigneur present, as well as the team’s other trainer Mathias Reck and Scientific Expert Teun van Erp who has been working on the riders’ training files as well as doing further pre-cooling Slush Puppie tests. Finally, Nutrition Expert Rob van der Werf has also spent some time with the riders to work on nutrition plans and help educate the riders on the best fuelling program.

“The training has become more and more specific to what races the guys have coming up but everyone has reacted really well to what we have been doing out here and hopefully it will translate into some strong form for this young group of riders over the next few weeks and months.”

The next race for any of these riders is the Clasica San Sebastian on Saturday 2 August.