FDJ sign Sinkeldam to bolster Demare's sprint train

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The FDJ team has confirmed the signing of Dutch national champion Ramon Sinkeldam from Team Sunweb to further boost its lead out train for sprinter Arnaud Demare. The French WorldTour team also confirmed the signing of experienced Grand Tour rider Georg Preidler, also from Team Sunweb.

Sinkledam will join forces with Italian lead-out riders Jacopo Guarnieri and Davide Cimolai to help Demare in the sprints and also form part of the cobbled Classics squad. Demare won the French national title and took a stage at the Tour de France and finished second in two others but was forced to quit the race due to illness on stage 9.

Sinkeldam rode the Tour de France with Team Sunweb, helping Michael Matthews win two stages and take the green points jersey. He won the Dutch national road race title a week before the Tour with his jersey sparking a polemic in the Netherlands because it contained only a small red, white and blue flag on the chest rather the traditional full colours worn by teammate and time trial champion Tom Dumoulin.

28-year-old Sinkeldam has been a professional since 2012. He came through the ranks of the Rabobank Development team and won the under-23 Paris-Roubaix in 2011, beating Jasper Stuyven. He won the Garmin Velothon Berlin and the Binche-Chimay-Binche/Memorial Frank Vandenbroucke race in 2015.

He was one of the six Team Sunweb riders injured in 2016 when a car drove into them during a training camp in Spain. Sinkeldam suffered a broken shoulder blade in the accident but went on to ride a full schedule including the Tour de France. He said that he was "lucky" to not remember the impact. 

The 27-year-old Preidler is the current Austrian national time trial champion and has ridden six Grand Tours during his career. He helped Dumoulin win the Giro d’Italia in May.