Belgian WorldTour team Intermarché-Wanty have confirmed their eight-man lineup for the Tour de France, with sprinter Biniam Girmay making his second Grand Tour start of the season after crashing out of the 2024 Giro d’Italia.
Girmay, 24, was unlucky to enough to crash and fall heavily twice in just six kilometres on stage 4 of the Giro d’Italia, which he subsequently abandoned.
However, he now returns to Grand Tour racing at the Tour de France, where he made his debut last year, taking third place in Bordeaux and sixth on the Champs Elysées.
The winner of the one-day Circuit Franco-Belge in late May, followed by second in the Brussels Cycling Classic early this month, Girmay looks to be hitting great form for the Tour de France where he and Belgian fastman and teammate Gerben Thijssen will share responsibilities in the bunch sprints.
Regular Tour de France top 10 finisher and a Vuelta a Espana summit finish winner, South Africa’s Louis Meintjes will once again handle the Belgian squad’s GC interests.
Explaining the choice of two fastmen to Wielerfilts, Intermarché-Wanty Head of Performance Aike Visbeek said, “If you look at the Tour’s sprint stages, you can clearly see that there are some that suit Bini well and some that suit Gerben well.”
Girmay and Thijssen will be backed by former yellow jersey and stage winner Mike Teunissen, along with Hugo Page and Laurenz Rex.
German Georg Zimmermann, winner of a Critérium du Dauphiné mountain stage in 2023 and whose second place behind Pello Bilbao (Bahrain Victorious) on stage 10 of the Tour was the team’s best result, will once again be looking for the breakaways.
Kobe Goossens, back in a Grand Tour after multiple knee operations following a bad crash in the Vuelta a Espana last year left him out for the count until the Tour de Romandie, is also another name to watch on the climbs.
Intermarché-Wanty lineup for the 2024 Tour de France
- Biniam Girmay
- Kobe Goossens
- Louis Meintjes
- Hugo Page
- Laurenz Rex
- Mike Teunissen
- Gerben Thijssen
- Georg Zimmermann
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