Hilaire Van Der Schueren (Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Preparing to set off (Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Competition within team is healthy (Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Climbs have been an important part of the training camp (Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Bjorn Leukemans recently signed a contract extension with Vacansoleil-DCM (Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Bianchi are one of the biggest names in the industry (Image credit: Bettini Photo)
The Spanish sunshine has been popular with lots of WorldTour teams this winter, with many of them staging their winter training camps there. The latest team fine-tuning their fitness under a Mediterranean sky are Dutch team Vacansoleil-DCM, who have based themselves in Benidorm on the Costa Blanca.
The likes of Johnny Hoogerland, Bjorn Leukemans and neo-pro Barry Markus are testing themselves on a variety of training runs under the watchful eye of the coaching staff. As you can see from our picture gallery, the team has been busy. It's a big pre-season, in particular for Hoogerland. After a bright start to 2011 in the spring, he suffered a horror crash in the Tour de France that disrupted the rest of his year, and a productive and injury free training camp will be crucial to the completion of his rehabilitation.
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