This year’s Giro is very special as it starts in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, on Friday with a 9.8km individual time trial, only a few steps away from the team’s Service Course. This is followed by two more stages in Holland before the race moves back home to Italy.

In his first Giro, Tom Dumoulin (NED) will be primarily aiming for the time trials. With Nikias Arndt (GER), there are a few early chances to go for success with the flat stages in the first week of racing. The opportunists in the line-up include Chad Haga (USA), Tobias Ludvigsson (SWE) and Georg Preidler (AUT), who are all capable of getting in the breakaways and fighting for a stage victory, as well as proving their strength against the clock.

Coach for the Giro d’Italia, Marc Reef (NED) said: “Our target is to go for a stage victory. We’ll have different opportunities in the time trials and the sprint stages. On top of that, we will apply an offensive strategy to aim for stage results from possible breakaways that survive until the finish.”