The Badaling International is the start of the PT calendar for quite some time now and while never being the most ideal race for the team, the rising focus on hilly races should see us having chances to get the best ever team result here.

Sean De Bie was 20th in 2016 and 7th in 2018 but while his skills remained, the team behind him became much stronger. The depth in the hills improved a lot and his team support should be excellent all year and in Badaling likely one of the best all season, so that we aim to reach the top5 in 2019.

The support here is no less than Zardini, van der Hugenhaben, Olivier, Keinath, Eiking and Thurau plus young talent Van Hooydonck. They could make an intesting hill train here.

Team debuts here for Nico Keinath, who is better on longer stage races but also expected to do well in some classics, Robin van der Hugenhaben, who mainly is additional support for GTs and De Bie`s races and also loaned in Odd Christian Eiking. who is the pure hill support.

Team	Goal
Sean De Bie	Top 5
Edoardo Zardini
Robin van der Hugenhaben
Daan Olivier
Nico Keinath
Odd Christian Eiking
Bjorn Thurau
Nathan Van Hooydonck

The Tour of Qatar likely is one of the most successful PT race in the team`s history and still we never had been super happy with the outcome. 4 Stage Wins, 2 Podiums surely sound quite well. But while Swift was pretty good for us in the recent years two things remain. The missed goal to win the race for us as in the earlier Vesuvio days and the weak performance in the last season.

This year saw big changes for our sprint department and we no longer can expect to win races like Qatar as Groenewegen is our main sprinter and unlikely to beat the very best.

Getting regular top10 sprint results in an expected high quality field is likely our goal and maybe a late top10 GC by our new TT machine Paillot, who is making his team debut here. He will be the only one actually as the rest of the team is built by former riders.

Team	Goal
Yoann Paillot	Top 10
Dylan Groenewegen
Tom Dumoulin
Frederik Frison
Lars Boom
Kristian Sbaragli
Phil Bauhaus
Taco van der Hoorn

To make it short. January was an excellent month for us. Badaling International, some kind of hate race for the team got the much wanted top5 with De Bie finishing in 4th but even better to see Olivier, Zardini and Keinath all in the top25 as well.

The Tour of Qatar then had a really bad start with all our team but Groenewegen being dropped making it a race the time trialists wouldn`t get anything from. At least Groenewegen showed his speed as 6th of the day. Unfortunately a good result was followed by a mediocre one and vice versa. In the end this resulted in a 6th/13th/3rd/11th/2nd for Groenewegen on the 5 sprint stages which had actually 2 podiums, which was more than expected. Due to the bonus seconds and the decent epilogue he finished in 2nd GC, which was much more than we came for. Paillot unfortunately couldn`t get as much as hoped with an 11th in the epilogue.

Tirreno - Adriatico will be the real start of Peter Velits` season, not counting the TTT event. Our new top stage racer is set to have a tough time obviously as the race is likely to see the division`s best climbers, which are a level above ours. The support he gets though should see several chances for us though and maybe we are lucky to find ourselves in different scenarios. Not only our second big new rider Keinath will be here after a stron Badaling showing, also Thomas Dekker as new luxury domestique is here alongside Koep.

Sprint wise also some hopes after Qatar as Groenewegen is here to fight for podiums and has strong support of Sbaragli and Bauhaus with him. The squad is completed by loanie Nicholas Dlamini, who is starting his season here.

Our goal is difficult. A top10 would be excellent but it`s hard really seeing the climbing competition. So a top20 is our only GC hope really but with the depth we might be able to grab a stage win or decent results here and there. In especially Groenewegen`s chances could be good.

Paris - Nice should be our best race in the triple clash. Sean De Bie will be here after his 4th in Badaling and usually he is performing better in stage races than in classics, which obviously makes us hope to reach the podium here. Not the most difficult stages and 11km time trials might be working out for him as well.

His support will be very well. Zardini and Van der Hugenhaben as we will see a lot this season alraedy worked well in China and should work well again.

Paillot, Boom and Dumoulin are all here mainly as support and free role but also with some hope for the time trials to hopefully do better than in Qatar.

Meanwhile season debut for Daniel Vesely with a team comeback after several years and hopefully can start his season as strong as Groenewegen. 2 chances for the sprinters depends on the startlist but hope is there to have a nice showing. His main support will be another season starter in Van der Poel, who is also in for nice couple of results and GCs as well in his second year for the team.

The team goal is the podium in the GC and a top10 basically on every single stage as the depth is good here.

The third race at the same time is the hilly classic in Luxembourg. As our focus is on Paris Nice again with De Bie, our hill co-leaders will have to show up here. Obviously the 2nd and 3rd best are with De Bie, but our hill depth this year is very good and so we send Daan Olivier and Odd Christian Eiking here as double lead with outside chances.

The support will be Thurau, Frison, Van Hooydonck, van der Hoorn and Sendeku, which are strong roleurs to help them on the first 50-80% of the race but surely one of them should go into the break and Thurau usually is a good bet for this but also the others have shown in the past how to perform well against the peloton.

The goal here is a top20 only but you never know. Having a good day and attacking at the right time might give us some little surprise.

A really annoying race here as you hardly know if a puncheur or a sprinter performs well. We tried both in the past but regularly went for the wrong decision and mainly teams with hill sprinters have an easy task of race selection here.

Our hope is on the sprinters once again as we send Groenewegen here. He is supported by Sbaragli, Boom, Van der Poel and Van Hooydonck. Obviously some of those could surprise themselves.

In case of a very hard stage maybe Keinath can follow an attack or Eiking/Thurau can have a mid stage break. Expectations here are low and a top10 would already be huge.

The Pro Hallstatt Classic is a semi mountain/hill race on a very difficult profile. As De Bie is a pure puncheur, we decide to go for the allrounder tactic here and the team will be lead by multiple riders.

Daan Olivier, Nico Keinath, Peter Velits, Edoardo Zardini and Robin Van der Hugenhaben all have great skills on those kind of semi climbs. Hopes are high to reach the top5-10 with one of them and lots of depth points by the others.

The squad is completed by Dekker, Dlamini and Sendeku.

Giulio Ciccone - 26 - 4.100 - 73,82 - Stage Racer

	Fl	Mo	Hi	TT	Sta	Res	Rec	Cob	Sp	Acc	Fig	DH	Prl
2019	67	75	72	69	69	69	71	50	51	69	59	59	77
2020	67	77	73	71	70	70	73	50	51	69	59	59	79

Coming back from loan to Italian team Generali, he collected important experience being often part of Gesink`s mountain train as solid domestique.
2020 will be his first maxed season and while still being a domestique, his stats suggest to see him in a free role more regularly.

Taco van der Hoorn - 27 - 4.100 - 73,68 - Cobble Domestique

	Fl	Mo	Hi	TT	Sta	Res	Rec	Cob	Sp	Acc	Fig	DH	Prl
2019	74	60	69	55	75	68	59	73	56	66	83	66	52
2020	75	60	70	55	76	69	60	75	56	66	84	66	52

Taco van der Hoorn had lot of helper tasks but also was one of our most active rider in breakaways in 2019. Exactly what he was supposed to do. Normally feeling most comfortable on the cobbles, the team lacked a clear leader there but also strength to fight against the best. This hopefully changes in future, so expect him to be a valuable domestique and still active on all other stages.

Nathan Van Hooydonck - 25 - 4.30 - 74,17 - Cobble Specialist

	Fl	Mo	Hi	TT	Sta	Res	Rec	Cob	Sp	Acc	Fig	DH	Prl
2019	69	63	69	68	70	70	67	75	61	71	63	66	68
2020	71	63	70	70	73	72	68	78	61	72	64	67	70
2021	73	63	71	72	75	74	69	80	61	72	64	67	72

Van Hooydonck is our hope to fill the huge gap in the cobbles, which was empty for most of our existence. He already might show up in 2020 but his prime will only start in 2021 onwards being a rider capable to perform well in the cobbled classics and also not too bad on hills and against the clock. Surely a rider to watch in the future.

Giovanni Carboni - 25 - 4.08 - 74,41 - Climber

	Fl	Mo	Hi	TT	Sta	Res	Rec	Cob	Sp	Acc	Fig	DH	Prl
2019	68	73	72	66	70	69	69	62	66	66	58	71	66
2020	69	76	75	67	71	71	71	62	66	68	61	72	67
2021	69	78	77	67	72	72	73	62	66	70	63	73	67

Giovanni Carboni is back from his loan at Moser - Sygic and developed quite a bit into a very valuable domestique in both mountains and hills. Yet ahead of his prime, he will search for more experience in 2020 to start having more free roles in 2021, where even a leadership in smaller races could become possible. His combination of mountain and hill climbing makes him a solid prospect.

Mathieu Van der Poel - 25 - 4.90 - 74,41 - Allrounder

	Fl	Mo	Hi	TT	Sta	Res	Rec	Cob	Sp	Acc	Fig	DH	Prl
2019	72	68	72	69	75	75	72	72	71	74	74	78	73
2020	73	69	74	69	77	76	73	72	72	76	76	79	73
2021	73	70	76	69	78	77	74	72	72	77	77	79	73

Mathieu Van der Poel is a great allrounder, maybe missing his top discipline to win the biggest races though. His main strength is the mix of hill climbing, cobbles and a fast finish from a reduced peloton. But also on tougher climbs and against the clock he doesn`t lose that much. So being a regular guy in the top25-50 of any GC already with more to come in future. His prime starts next season as a tiny bit is still missing and while the exact last stat gain isn`t secured yet, it`s a possibility as well to go a full 70+ stat line with him.