Today Lotto Soudal presented its team for the Tour de France. Team Manager Marc Sergeant is hoping for stage wins with André Greipel. "At 32 years of age, he is better than ever." Tim Wellens is ready for his first Tour. "I wonder what I can achieve there."

For the first time in years, Lotto Soudal go to the Tour de France without GC ambitions. "We go to the Tour de France to win stages," team manager Marc Sergeant said according to Sporza.

"If we get a jersey, that is a bonus. The team is obviously built around sprinter André Greipel. In the past he has proved his value for this team several times and I have the impression that at 32 years of age he is stronger than ever.

"But we also have guys who can finish it off in escapes. Lars Bak, Adam Hansen and Thomas De Gendt have proven in the past that they are able to win a stage in a Grand Tour."

What does Sergeant expect from Tour rookie Tim Wellens? "It would be great if he could win a stage. It is the first time he is at the start of the Tour. The GC is not a goal. Let him experience the race.

"With the stage in Zeeland, the finish in Huy, the stage with the cobblestones and the stage along the Atlantic coast it will be a hectic opening week.

"That's what I told Jurgen Van den Broeck and Maxime Monfort. If we want to win stages  with Greipel, we can not take care of them at the same time. It's a difficult Tour for teams with GC riders because they have no experience there."

Tim Wellens will be at the start of the Tour de France for the first time. He has no GC ambitions but he hopes to show himself between Utrecht and Paris.

"It is already quite a victory to be in the Tour squad. The goal is to be in a breakaway and finish the race. I have not red-circled a specific stage. The daily condition and luck play too much of a role to do that."

To prepare himself well for his first Tour, Wellens did his first altitude training. "It remains to be seen what effect it has on my body. Each rider reacts differently. After the classics I was not satisfied and I felt that I could have done more.

"That's what I did. I lost weight and lived more for my sport. The Belgian Championships were disappointing but I have a lot of faith in a good Tour. It lasts three weeks and you should also not be too at the start . I wonder what I am going to achieve.

"I deliberately skip the GC. That's too ambitious this year. I hope to be alongside Thibaut Pinot and Romain Bardet in the future. Howeverm they are currently still better than me. What will make me satisfied on July 26? Well, they always say you're only a real rider when you have finished the Tour. So I hope to be a rider after this Tour."

After the disappointing classics, Wellens focused everything on the Tour. Still, he hopes to not have to do so in the future. "It should go very well for me to do so again. I missed a lot of good races and that's a shame. I am against focusing everything on one race."