Taco van der Hoorn signs for LottoNL-Jumbo

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Taco van der Hoorn will move up to WorldTour level in 2019 after signing a two-year contract with LottoNL-Jumbo, which will be known as Team Jumbo from January 1. The Dutchman joins the squad after two seasons with Pro Continental outfit Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij.

The biggest victory of Van der Hoorn's career came at the BinckBank Tour in August, when he won from the break on stage 3 in Antwerp.

His triumph was all the more noteworthy given that he had missed the bulk of the 2018 season due to the lingering effects of a concussion suffered in a mountain biking crash last winter.

Van der Hoorn's first race of the year came in a post-Tour de France criterium in Surhuisterveen in late July but barely two weeks later he claimed the first WorldTour win of his career. The 24-year-old has enjoyed a strong finish to the 2018 season. He won the Primus Classic last month, and in the past week has placed 4th at Binche-Chimay-Binche and 9th at Paris-Tours.

"The way he returned in the peloton after that concussion proves his exceptional capabilities," LottoNL-Jumbo directeur sportif Merijn Zeeman said in a statement on Tuesday. "We consider Taco a good classics rider and we'll develop him into an even better classic specialist."

Team Jumbo have already signed Mike Teunissen from Sunweb to bolster their cobbled Classics squad, while Lars Boom will leave the team for Roompot in 2019.

A native of Rotterdam, Van der Hoorn studied towards a degree in human movement sciences during his tenure at Roompot, and he sees Team Jumbo as something of a finishing school for developing riders.

"Young riders really get better at Team LottoNL-Jumbo. I'm proud to become part of the team. In their early years, many riders were not considered very talented, but they have developed into good pros anyway" said Van der Hoorn.

"I never was a big talent as a youngster, but I still make progress every year."