Tour of Guangxi, Vanmarcke Moves Forward to 2020

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Tour of Guangxi, Vanmarcke Moves Forward to 2020

Sepp Vanmarcke is looking ahead to next season at the Tour of Guangxi and is eager to put his ill-fated 2019 behind him, even if there are wins along the way.

Two days ago in Nanning, the Belgian attacked from the break to help his EF Education First team win the second stage, which Dan McRae won in a sprint. Vanmarcke was in a solo position in the last 10km, but was caught up in mechanical trouble as he was charging for the win.

The accident was reminiscent of his biggest race of the year, Paris-Roubaix. A derailleur problem in the final forced him to switch bikes and he missed out on a chance to fight for the win. He was fourth in Roubaix, but crashed in the E3 Harelbeke (Binkbank Classic; editor's note), missing a chance to score there."

"Just like two days ago, I had a mechanical problem here in the last 5km. But overall I think the level was very good and we had a good win."

He won the opening stage of the Tour du Haut Var in February for the first time and took his first WorldTour victory at the Bretagne Classique-Aust-France in September.

"I didn't win many races, just two, and one was a big race in Ouest-France. I proved again how high my level is, but I needed some luck to get a good win."

"I was not able to win much.

Despite testing himself in the second stage in Guangxi, this was not a race of great ambition for Vanmarcke.

"Basically, this race is for next year," he said. Of course, the big goal is to compete in the Classics again." Of course, the big goal is to run the classics again. Right now I just need to keep riding my bike, stay healthy, get lucky, and then I should be able to get to the top."

His team has also made some notable additions for 2020: top-20 finishers at the E3 Binkbank Classic and Tour of Flanders, Magnus Kort joins from Astana, where he finished 12th in Flanders this year and was runner-up in Gent-Wevelgem in 2017 Jens Keukerer joins from Lotto Soudal.

Cobbled Classics veteran Matti Breschel will leave the team, but with the two newcomers, plus Flanders champion Albert Bettiol and Sebastian Langefeldt, third in Roubaix in 2017, Vanmarcke will have outstanding firepower next spring.

"These two guys [Keukerer and Colt] plus Bettiol, Langefeldt, and myself are basically the five riders who can make the final. I'm not saying that all of us will make the finals, but at least three of us will."

"It's going to be a good team and Roubaix (is the goal). There are basically only two weeks between Harelbeke and Roubaix. But we are hoping that everything will go well in those two weeks."

Vanmarcke is coming off an unlucky cobbled-together campaign and will have the strongest support team of his career backing him next season.

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