At 37, a small dose of realism about taking on your younger rivals is no bad thing and so Paris-Roubaix winner Greg Van Avermaet has reshuffled his goals and priorities for 2023.
Rather than try to build steadily towards the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, Van Avermaet has decided to target Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on February 25. And afterwards, che sera, sera.
Van Avermaet is a double winner of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and was third last year. That result was one of the highlights of a difficult 2022 season for the former Olympic champion and AG2R Citroën team leader.
Van Avermaet has archived 2022 and after a solid winter of training is happy to back at the Tour of Oman, one of his favourite ‘warm-up’ races for the Classics.
“The team was not here last year so I had no option, but I’ve been here 10 times, I think,” Van Avermaet, who won a stage of Oman and led overall for two days in 2018, told Cyclingnews before stage 2.
“It’s got a lot of hard finals, which is good, and the weather is good – not too hot, not too cold. There’s almost no jet lag, it’s much more relaxing than other ones in Europe and well-organised and I always find I do well in the Classics after this.”
When Van Avermaet returns to Europe he will be back in the thick of the action almost immediately at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the Belgian Opening Weekend, which marks the end of the ‘early-season’ and […]
Continue reading the original article at: www.cyclingnews.com