Philippe Gilbert has announced his schedule for the resumed 2020 season, taking in a series of one-day Classics as well as the Tour de France. The 37-year-old will kick things off at Strade Bianche, the race he won in 2011.
The race will be the first in a series of Italian Classics Gilbert will race in August, with Milano-Torino following ahead of Milan-San Remo. He'll lead Lotto Soudal at La Primavera, which he said last week that he wants to win to complete his sweep of the five Monuments.
Mid-August will see him take on the four-day Tour de Wallonie as he builds up to his 10th Tour de France appearance 10 days later. He'll search for his second career stage win in France, and will be joined by Thomas De Gendt, Caleb Ewan, Tim Wellens and John Degenkolb as part of a strong, multi-pronged Lotto squad.
Gilbert will take a two-week break following the Tour, heading to the 'spring' Classics and a bid for another Liège-Bastogne-Liège victory before heading to De Brabantse Pijl and Amstel Gold Race.
The Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix – races he won in 2017 and 2019 – are also on Gilbert's calendar, with the Hell of the North the final race on the Belgian's 2020 schedule.
Gilbert will train in a Tour de France team 'bubble' at Lotto Soudal as the team prepares for the season resumption. He'll join Ewan, Wellens, Degenkolb – among others – at a mid-July camp in the mountains of central France. Other groups within the team will train together according to schedule, too.
A new signing at Lotto for 2020, returning after his three-year spell at the squad to 2011, Gilbert's best result in the spring was eighth at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. He also rode the Volta a la Comunidad Valenciana, Volta ao Algarve and Paris-Nice before the COVID-19 pandemic saw lockdowns across Europe cause the postponement of the cycling season.
Since then, Gilbert has been in the news on multiple occasions, getting a fine for training outdoors in Monaco and breaking the Strava record for the La Redoute climb featured in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, though his record fell a day later.
Check out Gilbert's full 2020 schedule below.
These are the races I'll ride later this summer and autumn! 🚴 pic.twitter.com/wJ1mMaAWwwJune 29, 2020
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Daniel Ostanek is production editor at Cyclingnews, having joined in 2017 as a freelance contributor and later being hired as staff writer. Prior to joining the team, he had written for most major publications in the cycling world, including CyclingWeekly, Rouleur, and CyclingTips.
Daniel has reported from the world's top races, including the Tour de France and the spring Classics, and has interviewed many of the sport's biggest stars, including Wout van Aert, Remco Evenepoel, Mark Cavendish, Demi Vollering, and Anna van der Breggen.
As well as original reporting, news and feature writing, and production work, Daniel also runs The Leadout newsletter and oversees How to Watch guides throughout the season. His favourite races are Strade Bianche and the Volta a Portugal, and he rides a Colnago C40.