Inspired by highly promising results obtained by Tom-Jelte Slagter in Ardennes classics, Garmin-Sharp manager Jonathan Vaughters claims that in only confirmed his initial assessment and that he expects the 24-year old Dutchman to conquer the one-day races arena in few years to come.

“Within a few years, Slagter will be ready to win this kind of race,” Vaughters told NOS, “He will be one of the best classics specialists in the world.”

Obviously, as a former Santos Tour Down Under winner, Slagter didn’t jump out of nowhere this year, but certainly stepped up to entirely different level during this season’s Paris-Nice, where he has won two stages and very likely missed out on the victory in the general classification only due to a terribly unfortunate mechanical in the sixth stage uphill finale to Fayence.

Even though his explosiveness was already proved, is always remains to be seen whether the rider is capable of maintaining his strengths following over 250 kilometers of tough racing, and Garmin-Sharp manager was pleased to acknowledge that the 24-year old Dutchman passed that test.

“Tom was an incredibly explosive rider and a real winner, but it always remains uncertain whether the rider would be able to prove it in classics with routes over 260 kilometer-long.”

As all remaining doubts over Slagter’s potential were eventually dispelled in Liege-Bastogne-Liege on Sunday, Vaughters came even further in praising the Garmin-Sharp rider.

“He is a Dutch Joaquim Rodriguez. No. Honestly, I think that he’s going to be even better,” Vaughters claimed.

It has been confirmed this weekend that 24-year old Dutchman will skip the Giro d’Italia to enjoy a well-deserved break following his successful spring campaign and then turn his focus into the Tour de France preparations.

“He has had a tremendously good spring and thus it would be a wrong decision to push him further to ride the Giro. We’re going to give him a short break now, so he is rested and healthy before the Tour kicks off…”

The Garmin-Sharp manager also pointed out that this year’s Tour de France route is more suitable to Slagter’s characteristics than the Giro d’Italia parcours, and indeed it’s hard to question such assessment.