Wanty-Groupe Gobert is currently preparing for the new season in Benidorm, Spain. The selection for 2016 consists of 22 riders. It counts nine new names on the roster including UCI Europe Tour's numbers three and seven Dimitri Claeys and Gaëtan Bille, Tour de l’Avenir stage winner and Liège-Bastogne-Liège U23-winner Guillaume Martin plus sprinter Kenny Dehaes. Sports director Hilaire Van der Schueren looks ahead to the new cycling year with ambition.

"We have strengthened the team in a way that we are able to win every race that we start in. This wasn't the case in 2015. Especially in the sprints we should be doing better now. With Thomas Degand we have a real climber back with the team. On this terrain Guillaume Martin is also hugely talented. Gaëtan Bille and Thomas Degand are strong time triallists and this makes that we have a potential winner in every discipline of cycling," according to Van der Schueren.

With Roy Jans, Kenny Dehaes, Danilo Napolitano, Antoine Demoitié, Robin Stenuit and Tom Devriendt, Wanty-Groupe Gobert now has six fast men on the team.

"In every stage race we start at the moment, the way of racing usually ends in a bunch kick. We have a double race program and if you divide the number of sprinters we should have someone fighting for victory in every race. Of course this is also a balancing act between the sprinters and this is something to work on during this training camp. If there is rivalry between them we must solve this but competition is also a good thing to show that your position and place in the team are not evident," Van der Schueren explains.

Wanty-Groupe Gobert has two strong captains for the Classics' season in Marco Marcato and Enrico Gasparotto.

"For the Ardennes races we count on 'Gaspa' and for the Flemish races on Marcato. They won't start these races as sole team leader however," the sports director warns. "I hope someone from the younger generation steps up like Dimitri Claeys for example. He gets a new chance to show what his true potential is." 

The experienced sports director hopes to do just as well as in 2014, his first year with Jean-François Bourlart's team. In this season Wanty-Groupe Gobert won ten races while in 2015 seven races were won.  

"I would like to get about twelve wins but I secretly hope for fifteen in 2016. That should be possible," Van Der Schueren concludes.