Lotto Soudal have confirmed Greg Henderson and Jelle Vanendert have extended their contracts with the team for the 2016 season. Henderson, 38, has been the Belgian outfit since 2012 and has been a key component in the lead out train of Andre Greipel. Henderson crashed out of the Tour de France on stage 3 this year, making his return to racing at the Eneco Tour in August.
"For me, it isn’t a surprise that I am still in the peloton on my fortieth birthday, even if I will be an exception in the team," Henderson said. "The main factor is motivation, I’m still very motivated to be ready when I need to be in top shape. Due to my crash in the third stage during the recent Tour de France, I couldn’t play the role I wanted. After Hamburg, I went on an altitude training camp in Colorado together with my family to prepare myself for the World Championships team time trial. We really focussed on it, with a seventh place as result. I will try to be in the best possible shape when I’m in competition to share my experience with the other riders. 2015 was a nice season, but I hope that we can do the same next year."
Vanendert, a Tour de France stage winner, has been a key rider at the Ardennes Classics for the team since joining in 2009. The 30-year-old's best result of the season was fifth at the GP de Wallonie in a season down on past performances. Vanendert thanked the team for showing belief in his abilities and recognised his past feats.
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"Of course I’m happy to stay with Lotto Soudal. I feel comfortable in this team, otherwise I wouldn’t stay. It’s true that the contract extension lasted a bit longer than usual, but nowadays teams wait longer and longer before extending the current contracts," Vanendert said. "It’s a trend from the past years because some teams stopped and there was an oversupply of riders. Then it becomes a problem when you don’t perform as well as expected. I think I already proved what I’m capable of in the past seven years with this team; on the other hand, some years were defined with bad luck. And 2015 was such a year. But I’m not ready yet with cycling and will be motivated to be at my best again in 2016."
Van Asbroeck second again at Nationale Sluitingprijs - Putte-Kapellen
For the second year running, Tom Van Asbroeck has ended his season with a narrow second place at the 1.1 Nationale Sluitingprijs - Putte-Kapellen. The LottoNL-Jumbo sprinter was awarded second place in a photo finish with Nacer Bouhanni taking the win.
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