To make History at the Tour de France.
Lilian Calmejane
Rui Costa
Biniam Girmay
Louis Meintjes
Adrien Petit
Dion Smith
Mike Teunissen
Georg Zimmermann

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Marie Pirard, Illustration
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INTERMARCHÉ-CIRCUS-WANTY REVEALS ITS ROSTER FOR THE TOUR DE FRANCE
On Saturday 1st of July, Intermarché-Circus-Wanty will start its sixth Tour de France in Bilbao, in the Basque Country. In order to shine, the Walloon World Team selected a solid and experienced team, with three Tour de France stage winners and several former jersey wearers.
PARCOURS
In total, the 110th edition contains eight mountain stages among which four mountain top finishes, eight stages suited for sprinters, only one 22 kilometer time trial and three days out of the French territory in the Basque Country to start with.
The first yellow jersey will be distributed after a hilly stage around Bilbao with more than 3000 meters of climbing, followed the next day by another hilly stage with the Alto de Jaizkibel 20 kilometer before the finish. The peloton then heads to France for two opportunities for sprinters, followed by a first fight in the Pyrenees towards Laruns on day five.
Ski station Cauterets-Campbasque will be the theatre of the first mountain top finish on day six, preceded by the Col d’Aspin and the Col du Tourmalet. After two new opportunities for sprinters, the peloton will return to the Puy de Dôme for the first time in 35 years, with a summit finish in the Massif Central to conclude the first week.
The rest day in Clermont-Ferrand will be followed by three days for the strong riders, before reaching the Jura for a finish on top of the Grand Colombier on July 14th. Then, two stages with over 4000 meter of climbing in the Alps await the riders, with the first one finishing in Morzine after the downhill of the Col de Joux-Plane and the second one on top of Saint-Gervais – Mont Blanc, where the peloton will start the second restday.
The only time trial opens the third week in the Haute-Savoie, containing the Côte de Domancy (2.5 km at 9.4%) as final part of the 22 kilometer stage. The next day, the seventeenth stage contains four major difficulties among whom the Col de la Loze, which is with its 2304 meters of altitude the roof of this edition, and the final climb to the Altiport de Courchevel to conclude this queen stage with more than 5000 meters of climbing.
The sprinters can then benefit of two opportunities before a final fight for the climbers in the Vosges on day twenty, a 133 kilometer stage finishing with the Col du Platzerwasel. Following the tradition, the 110th edition is concluded with a 21st stage on the Parisian circuit on the Champs-Elysées.
SELECTION
Thanks to his seventh place in the edition of 2022,
Louis Meintjes achieved the first top ten of the Walloon team in the final classification. The South-African rider, who already finished twice on eight place before (2016 and 2017), will for the third year in a row receive the support of
Georg Zimmermann, winner of the sixth stage of the Critérium du Dauphiné to Crest-Voland earlier this month.
For his debut in the Tour de France,
Biniam Girmay will lead the selection in the sprint stages. Just like in his victorious sprint in de Tour de Suisse, he can rely on the experience of
Adrien Petit and former yellow jersey wearer and stage winner
Mike Teunissen. Last named won in the Tour of Norway last month, his first victory since the Tour of 2019.
With
Rui Costa and
Lilian Calmejane, the selection contains two other stage winners. The former world champion won three stages in the Tour and will participate for the eleventh time. Calmejane, winner in 2017 on Station des Rousses and polkadot jersey wearer, will be at the start for the fifth time.
Finally,
Dion Smith returns to the Tour for the first time since he entered history in 2018, by becoming the first rider of his country and of the team of
Jean-François Bourlart to wear a distinctive jersey in the most prestigious race in the world. The New-Zealander offered himself the honour to wear the polkadot jersey during three days.
The sportive direction of the team is assured by
Aike Visbeek, Steven De Neef, Laurenzo Lapage and
Pieter Vanspeybrouck.
Our ambition for the Tour 2023 is to take our very first stage win and to finish in the top ten of the final classification. To achieve this, last winter we built a strong and experienced group around our leaders Biniam Girmay and Louis Meintjes. This group raced often together and this from our first races of the season on Majorca. In May, our preselection started a specific preparation with a collective altitude camp and two parallel race programmes. A larger selection benefited from this preparation, which enabled us to fill in the absences of Kobe Goossens and Rune Herregodts. We can head to Bilbao with confidence.
Aike Visbeek (Performance Manager) Tweet
Our leader for the general classification is Louis Meintjes. With his seventh place last year, he obtained the first top ten of our history in the Tour de France. He will receive our full support to repeat this stunt in this edition. The mission of Biniam Girmay is to win a stage in the sprint. To increase our chances, we did the recon of several stages the past couple of months. We organised training sessions with the sprint train. It is also a priority for the long term development of Biniam Girmay to finish a race of three weeks for the first time in his career.
Aike Visbeek (Performance Manager) Tweet
We’re pleased to be able to rely on the full strength of our road captain Adrien Petit again after a double injury in the first half of the season. He is an important element in our team, especially for Biniam Girmay who trusts him a lot. Last week he was reunited with Girmay and Mike Teunissen, which immediately led to a nice victory in the Tour de Suisse. In the same race, we appreciated watching the ambition of Lilian Calmejane, Rui Costa and Dion Smith, both on the attack and in service of the team.
Aike Visbeek (Performance Manager) Tweet
Also in the Critérium du Dauphiné our riders showed that they were on track for the Tour de France with a brilliant stage win of Georg Zimmermann on Crest-Voland and seventh place of Louis Meintjes in the final classification. I have noted that three riders of our roster recently won, which shows our good dynamics and offers our group an extra motivation. I’m convinced that with these eight riders, we have cards to play for the stage win each day, no matter the parcours.
Aike Visbeek (Performance Manager)