Michal Kwiatkowski will lead Team Sky at Amstel Gold Race. The former world champion showed great form with his victory at E3 Harelbecke and aims to defend his title in the Netherlands.

"I’m on schedule and everything has gone well over the last two weeks. I’ve been training in Spain for the last few weeks and I’m ready to go for Sunday", he told Cyclingnews. "I did just two of the cobbled Classics, E3 and the Tour of Flanders. Honestly, I don’t think that it’s made a big difference to my form or my preparation. I didn’t feel anymore fatigue after Flanders than I should have and I’ve done a similar race programme before. I think that this approach might even be better than riding Pais Vasco. The conditions there were way too hard for preparing for the Ardennes."

The Polish rider will be supported by Sergio Henao, who recently finished on the podium of the Vuelta al Pais Vasco. Michał Gołaś, Peter Kennaugh, Wout Poels, Danny van Poppel, Lars Petter Nordhaug and Ben Swift complete the British team. 

Team Sky general manager Dave Brailsford wants to win one of the big classics and with a really competitive team in Netherlands, Kwiatkowski is with full of confidence. "We’ve got a really good group of guys and I’m always confident when coming into races with the team. All the guys are around me and that give me confidence both before and during racing. That’s why I signed for Team Sky, so that I could have that level of support", he noticed. "It’s really important, to have more than one guy who can win the race though. If you look at Tinkoff they had Peter Sagan and it worked out for him in Gent-Wevelgem in Flanders but sometimes it can be harder when you just one guy to work for, as we saw with some teams in Roubaix. That’s our strength in some ways."

He thinks that the Dutch race is his best chance in the Ardennes week. "Amstel suits me a bit better but I still need to find my way in Liege. I really like the final, the finish on the Cauberg. It’s a race that really suits me. It’s always a very nervous race and of course teams like Etixx, who have the numbers, are going to play a part. I watched the last 50km of De Brabantse Pijl - La Fleche Brabanconne and there were lots of teams attacking there."