Evening Headlines: Dumoulin Giro/Tour Double – Hammer Series Extension – Van Avermaet targets Strade Bianche

Evening Headlines

Your round-up of the day’s news.

Dumoulin goes for Giro/Tour Double

Aike Visbeek, Sports Director of Team Sunweb, while speaking to WielerFlits, confirms that Tom Dumoulin will line up at Tour de France in July “At the moment we have a clear plan – Tom will go for the general classification at the Giro and he will also go for the Tour, while Wilco [Kelderman] will go to the Tour and the Vuelta.”

Hammer Series Extension

The Hammer Series will double their programme in 2018, expanding to two events.Velon confirmed today that The Hammer Series 2018 will return to Limburg (1-3 June), while adding a second event the week prior in Stavanger (25-27 May), to follow the Tour des Fjords who supported this new format in an attempt to help promote the Norwegian stage race. Although a third event was previously touted by the race organisers, it is unclear if the Croatia event from 20 to 22 September will form part of the Hammer Series 2018 programme.

Van Avermaet targets Strade Bianche

After an unsuccessful weekend in Flanders, Greg Van Avermaet sets his sights on the white roads of Tuscany. “Strade Bianche is a race that is pretty honest, so I am looking forward to it,” says the Belgian.

“It is one of my favourite races in the year, and I hope the weather is okay because I do not love the cold that much, or the rain…”

The weather certainly wasn’t working in his favour last night when temperatures in Tuscany fell as low as -7ºC, landing a dusting of snow across the gravel roads of the region.