After his first year at the highest level, Oliver Naesen will join AG2R La Mondiale from IAM Cycling. The 26-year old Belgian chose the French adventure deliberately. "They were really anxious to get me on the team," he told Cyclingnews .

Having been recommended by Stijn Vandenbergh who signed the team before the Critérium du Dauphiné, Naesen opted to join the team. Both Belgians will focus on the classics together with Alexis Gougeard.

"There's no one leader," Naesen said. "Me and Stijn are both aggressive riders, I have a little sprint but also have to attack before a sprint. If we get into a final together, we can each try to do our thing and follow the logical thing – if one's ahead the other hangs back and tries and disrupt the chase.

"If we were in QuickStep or BMC or whatever, then if you race for 5th place - which for me would be really good in Flanders and for Stijn also - they'd be very disappointed. At a team like AG2R, if you're 5th in the big classics, or get lots of top 10s, for them that's the objective. I can do it and Stijn can do it."

Naesen indicates that Lotto Soudal was looking to sign him but only wanted to talk after the Tour de France. 

"It feels totally different when a team really wants you to join them, rather than when they say 'maybe after the Tour we can talk, blah blah blah'. It's a really big difference. When I was looking at the list of WorldTour teams, there aren't many who don't have a big leader for the Classics. AG2R is one of them, and since they were so anxious to have me I signed the day before the Tour. I'm really happy about it.”