Three action-packed days await our riders at the third edition of the event.
The dust has settled on Hammer Stavanger, but the exciting Hammer Series continues this weekend with Hammer Limburg, which Deceuninck – Quick-Step have won last year after a superb all-round performance. Victorious in the Hammer Sprint at the season’s first event in Norway, our squad comes to the Netherlands with a mix of youth and experience: Dries Devenyns, Remco Evenepoel, Fabio Jakobsen, Belgian Champion Yves Lampaert, Davide Martinelli and Danish Champion Michael Mørkøv.
The Hammer Climb will kick off the party on Friday afternoon, with the race taking place over eight laps of 8 kilometers, each lap containing two climbs – 700 meters at 7% and 1700 meters at 6.6%. Just 24 hours later, the Hammer Sprint will put on the table a slightly undulating 12.4km circuit which will be covered eight times, and it will be at the end of this race that we’ll know the starting order of the teams on the final day, the Hammer Chase, a 49.6km-long and challenging team time trial.
Sports director Tom Steels, who will lead Deceuninck – Quick-Step from behind the wheel, made a preview of what’s in store this weekend: “I think we are going to be the most vulnerable on the first day – it will be hard, with two tough sections and no time to recover, so maybe only Remco and Michael can take points and hold a good position. Our chances will increase for the second event, where we hope to repeat our Stavanger win. Then, with Dries joining us on the last stage, we have a really strong team to get a good result in the TTT.”
All three days of Hammer Limburg will be streamed live on www.hammerseries.com.
Photo credit: ©Luc Claessen/ Getty Images
