Belgian team Accent.jobs-Wanty has become the sixth Professional Continental team to be awarded a wildcard invitation by race director Leo van Vliet, taking the number of teams in the Dutch WorldTour race up to 25. All nineteen WorldTour ProTeams have been invited to the race by right, and wildcards had previously been awarded to Crelan-Euphony, Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise, IAM Cycling, Team Netapp Endura and Team Europcar; Russian team Katusha had originally been invited as a wildcard before finally securing its ProTeam status for 2013.
With the number of teams going up to 25, with eight riders each, the peloton will be at the maximum allowed size of 200 when the race rolls out of Maastricht on April 14th.
Accent.jobs-Wanty directeur sportif Steven De Neef has confirmed that Classics captain Staf Scheirlinckx has recovered from the fractured collarbone that he suffered in the opening stage of the Tour Méditerranéen in February, and - although he didn’t finish yesterday’s first stage of the Driedaagse De Panne-Koksijde - will lead the team in the Dutch race.
The rest of the Belgian team will be made up of Steven Caethoven, Degand Thomas, Jerome Gilbert [younger brother of BMC Racing’s World champion Philippe - ed], Gregory Habeaux, Will Routley, Nicolas Vogondy and Stefan van Dijk, with Davy Commeyne and Jurgen van Goolen named as reserves.
The race will have a different finish in 2013, moving almost two kilometres past the summit of the Cauberg climb to the same spot as used in last year’s World championships.
19 WorldTour teams (automatically invited)
AGR2 La Mondiale (France)
Astana (Kazakhstan)
Blanco Pro Team (Netherlands)
BMC (United States)
Cannondale (Italy)
Euskaltel-Euskadi (Spain)
FDJ (France)
Garmin Sharp (United States)
Katusha (Russia)
Lampre-Merida (Italy)
Lotto Belisol (Belgium)
Team Movistar (Spain)
Omega Pharma-Quick Step (Belgium)
Orica Green Edge (Australia)
RadioShack-Leopard (Luxembourg)
Sky (UK)
Argos-Shimano (Netherlands)
Saxo-Tinkoff (Denmark)
Vacansoleil-DCM (Netherlands)
Six Professional Continental “wildcard” teams
Accent.jobs-Wanty
Crelan-Euphony
IAM Cycling
Team Europcar
Team Netapp Endura
Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise