Lotto Soudal have announced their team for Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

Manager Marc Sergeant said: “

Liège-Bastogne-Liège is one of the five monuments in cycling and you can’t compare it with the other ‘Ardennes Classics’. This race is longer and has another profile, the finish can’t be compared to the Mur de Huy or the finish in Valkenburg. Tim Wellens showed in the previous races that he has the best legs. On Sunday, he can have a go again. Besides Tim, we have riders such as Tony Gallopin and Jelle Vanendert who can ride a good finale too.”

Today the Lotto Soudal team for Sunday did a recon of a part of the course of ‘La Doyenne’. Tim Wellens, Tony Gallopin and Jelle Vanendert will be the leaders for the Belgian team just like the past few races.

“We start again with a strong team, I hope that the weather conditions will be the same as forecasted (cold weather and rain on Sunday, ed)," Sergeant said. "If that’s the case, there will be a natural selection in the peloton. Our riders already proved that they can deal with such circumstances. The race that Tim won in Montréal was a very hard race, mainly due to the rain.

"In my opinion, Movistar will be the main team together with their leader Alejandro Valverde. Wednesday, they already showed that there are able to control the race and that they make the right tactical decisions. Valverde is someone who can finish off the work of his team, he already showed that several times, also here in La Doyenne.”

Tim Wellens added:

“Liège-Bastogne-Liège is the race I look forward to the most and it’s also the Ardennes Classic that suits me best. It pleases me a lot that the team has so much confidence in me, I hope that I’ll be able to obtain a nice result so I can thank them. On Sunday, it will be important to save your strength as long as possible. This race is very hard because of the distance, the sequence of the hills and hopefully also because of bad weather conditions. Therefore we’ll enter the finale with a small group.

"La Redoute will be too early to try something, but from the Roche-aux-Faucons there are some opportunities to attack. The new hill with cobbles will reduce the group of favourites even more because it’s situated at the end of the race. After that, the rider with the best legs will obtain the victory.

"The past few races already showed the candidates for the victory in La Doyenne, but it also depends on the form of the day. I hope to obtain a nice result on Sunday, with the condition I have that should be possible. I’ll do my very best just like always.”

Lotto Soudal tried to attack early during the past few races and decided not to sit back and wait until the final climbs. Unfortunately that didn’t always lead to a result.

Sergeant explained: “On Wednesday we said to our leaders that they had the permission to wait until the final climb of the Mur de Huy. Tim was a bit disappointed after the race because he attacked too soon. We talked about that and we decided that next year he needs to wait until the final climb.”

Tim Wellens added: “In the Amstel Gold Race I finished tenth, I wasn’t entirely pleased with that result but I really gave my all. Now I’m happy that I raced that way. Wednesday is a different story. I can only confirm the words from Marc Sergeant. We were allowed to wait until the final climb in Huy indeed. Yet I decided to attack earlier; on the one hand that’s part of my way of racing and on the other riders from Etixx and Movistar were riding in front. I was disappointed after the finish, but I think we can only learn from this.”

Roster Lotto Soudal:

Sander Armée, Bart De Clercq, Thomas De Gendt, Tony Gallopin, Tomasz Marczynski, Tosh Van der Sande, Jelle Vanendert and Tim Wellens.