Lotto-Soudal

Belgian | Team website

Lotto-Soudal are a likeable old-school Belgian team who walk the fine line between organisational competence and chaos. Lotto would usually attack the Tour de France on two fronts, with André Greipel in the sprints and Jurgen Van den Broeck in the overall. Neither of which worked particularly well.

On past results though, Greipel’s was also the safer bet — he eventually won 22 stages over his career. Now though, the team's form is much more sporadic, evidenced by their nineteenth-place finish in the UCI World Team Ranking for 2021. 

Sponsored by the Belgian lottery and adhesives and sealants manufacturer Soudal, Lotto-Soudal started racing in 1985, and is one of the oldest teams in the peloton. 

Unfortunately, Lotto were struck by tragedy in 2019, when their young talent Bjorg Lambrecht died after a crash 50km into stage three of the Tour of Poland.

Still reeling from that incident, Lotto-Soudal have struggled for victories in the past two years, and have relied heavily on talented sprinter Caleb Ewan for a large proportion of their wins.

In 2021 the Australian won a stage on the UAE Tour, the Benelux Tour, two stages on the Tour of Belgium and, most notably, stages five and seven on the Giro d'Italia. He also scored the team's joint-highest Monument race finish, achieving second at Milan-San Remo. 

Perhaps the most incredible story of Lotto-Soudal's 2021 season though came from Florian Vermeersch at Paris-Roubaix. The 22-year-old surprised everyone when he managed to join a group of breakaway riders during the race, and upon coming into the velodrome at Roubaix, the young Belgian was neck and neck with Sonny Colbrelli and Mathieu van der Poel.

Colbrelli agonisingly pipped Vermeersch to the line, but he still managed to finish ahead of Van der Poel in what was a thrilling finale to an eventful race.

2021 also only yielded two top-ten finishes in the Classics, at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Amstel Gold Race, a far cry from the team's previous successes. However, Lotto are still waiting for a Grand Tour winner too, having failed to succeed in any of the three races since the team formed in 1985.

Largely comprised of Belgian riders, Lotto-Soudal also features a fairly inexperienced roster. The team hopes one day their young rides will develop into race winners.

Lotto-Soudal 2022 squad

Filippo Conca (ITA)
Steff Cras (BEL)
Jasper De Buyst (BEL)
Thomas De Gendt (BEL)
John Degenkolb (GER)
Caleb Ewan (AUS)
Frederik Frison (BEL)
Philippe Gilbert (BEL)
Kobe Goossens (BEL)
Sébastien Grignard (BEL)
Matthew Holmes (GBR)
Roger Kluge (GER)
Andreas Kron (DEN)
Kamil Małecki (POL)
Tomasz Marczyński (POL)
Sylvain Moniquet (BEL)
Stefano Oldani (ITA)
Harry Sweeny (AUS)
Gerben Thijssen (BEL)
Tosh Van der Sande (BEL)
Maxim Van Gils (BEL)
Brent Van Moer (BEL)
Harm Vanhoucke (BEL)
Florian Vermeersch (BEL)
Viktor Verschaeve (BEL)
Xandres Vervloesem (BEL)
Tim Wellens (BEL)