Rafael Valls who has been riding for Lampre-Merida in the last two seasons, will debut in his new Lotto Soudal colors at the Tour Down Under in Australia.

Valls has finalized his schedule at a 10-day team training camp that has been held since Monday in the town of El Arenal, Palma de Mallorca. Marc Sergeant's team will travel to Belgium on December 16 for the team presentation which will be held the next day.

Valls will make his debut at criterium People's Choice Classic on January 17 while his first UCI race will be the Tour Down Under (January 19-24), a race that he last did in 2013 when he crashed out of the 12th edition that was won by Tom-Jelte Slagter.

His goal will be to o well in one-week stage race like in 2015 when he won the Tour of Oman ahead of Tejay van Garderen, Alejandro Valverde and Rafal Majka, was eighth in Paris-Nice and the Tour of Catalunya and 11th in the Dauphiné. He also did the Tour de France but ended his season due to injury.

Tomasz Marczyński and Jelle Wallays are the other two signing for Lotto-Soudal while the team has retained Benoot, Debusschere, Gallopin, Greipel and Wellens who will be supported by solid riders like De Gendt, Hansen, Henderson, Roelandts and Sieberg. The most significant loss is Jurgen Van den Broeck who has signed with Katusha.

Valls started his career at Burgos Monumental (2009) - before then he was stagiare at Relax and Scott-American Beef - and then rode for Footon-Servetto (2010), Geox (2011), Vacansoleil-DCM (2012-2013) and Lampre- Merida (2014-2015).