Tim Merlier is hoping to continue his run of 2024 sprint success at the Giro d’Italia, with the Belgian heading to altitude with his family soon after the cobbled classics to try to find a boost for the expected six or seven sprint opportunities during the Corsa Rosa.
Merlier will lead Soudal Quick-Step in Italy, alongside Julian Alaphilippe and Mauri Vansevenant, with the USA’s Luke Lamperti also part of the Belgian team after his impressive season debut and Classics campaign.
Merlier has already won seven sprints in 2024, including at Scheldeprijs, where he beat Jasper Philipsen and Dylan Groenwegen. Merlier was overlooked for a place in the Grand Tours in 2023 but has helped save Soudal Quick-Step’s early season after their poor Classics campaign and Remco Evenepoel’s collarbone fracture at Itzulia Basque Country.
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While Tadej Pogacar is expected to dominate the race overall victory and the race for the maglia rosa, the sprint finishes should produce some close battles and rivalries. The Giro d’Italia begins in Turin on Saturday May 4 with a hilly opening road stage and a mountain finish. The sprint opportunities then come in the first week as the race heads south to Tuscany.
Other sprinters on the Giro d’Italia entry list include Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease a Bike), Fabio Jakobsen (Dsm-firmenich PostNL), Caleb Ewan (Jayco-Alula), Fernando Gaviria (Movistar), Alberto Dainese (Tudor), Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Biniam Girmay (Intermarché - Wanty), Sam Welsford (Bora-Hansgrohe), Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious) and Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates).
The only big-name sprinters missing from the Giro d’Italia are Mark Cavendish (Astana Qazaqstan), Groenewegen and Philipsen. Cavendish is riding the Tour de Hongrie in early May, while Groenewegen and Philipsen are focusing on the Tour de France.
Merlier beat most of the big-name sprinters at the UAE Tour and is happy to see a Giro d’Italia peloton packed with sprinters and their lead-out trains.
“The more sprinters there are, the more teams there are to aim for a sprint. You also have a slightly better understanding when you form the gruppetto in the mountains,” Merlier told Nieuwsblad in a long interview, highlighting the contrasting logic of a sprinter in a Grand Tour.
Merlier was speaking from Mount Teide where he was completing his pre-Giro training, with his partner Cameron Vandenbroucke and their young son. He has trained with Edward Theuns of Lidl-Trek who will be Milan’s leadout man, mixing low-altitude sprint efforts with rides back up to Hotel El Parador on the higher slopes of Tenerife's volcano.
Merlier won a stage at the 2021 Giro d’Italia in Novara. He also won a Tour de France stage during the same season and has 41 victoria on his palmares. He is hoping for more in the 2024 Corsa Rosa.
“I'm going for a first stage win. If I get that one, I will think about the next one and then maybe the points jersey can become a goal. But I’ll focus on the sprints themselves,” he said.
The Giro d’Italia again starts in Piemonte, like in 2021 when Merlier won in Novara on stage 2.
“Now there are more possibilities than in 2021 but on the other hand you have to survive a lot more,” Merlier explained, noting the late climbs that have often been included before sprint finishes.
“There are two stages where in the final you have to survive two 2km climbs at four to five per cent. Normally that is not a problem for me but it is also not that you get to the finish easily.
"I won the Scheldeprijs, Nokere Koerse and three World Tour competitions. I am very satisfied with my spring, even though a crash took me out of Paris-Roubaix. I was up there in the spring and now I want to be up there in Giro.”
