Lotto Soudal has recruited young sprinters Arnaud de Lier, Victor Campenaerts, and Caleb Yuan to try to score as many points as possible in the one-day race, Circuit Franco-Belge, to avoid relegation from the World Tour.

The Belgian team has kept the points scoring under wraps before winning, but has changed its race program to maximize the points it can earn in the remaining three months of the 2022 season.

Campenaerts and the rest of the Lotto-Soudal riders chose not to compete in the European Championships in order to focus on scoring points in the next two weeks. Ewan missed the Vuelta a España and recently underwent surgery to remove a plate from his collarbone, so he will target the Bemer Cyclassics Hamburg and other point-rich one-day races before heading to Australia for the World Championships.

Lotto Soudal is one of five WorldTour teams competing in the season-ending Le Tour de Langkawi in Malaysia. This race is the final race of the 2022 season and will determine who will be relegated from the 2023 World Tour. Lotto Soudal is currently less than 700th in the standings, down from 18th, and could soon overtake Movistar and Cofidis.

Campenaerts downplayed the importance of UCI ranking points Sunday after winning the Tour de Leuven, but Lotto-Soudal earned a total of 196 points in the race to boost their morale and fight relegation.

The 20-year-old De Lier has already won seven races in his debut season with Lotto Soudal and is expected to survive on the undulating roads of southern Belgium. De Lier is also the leader of the Exterior Series. Also riding are Brent Van Moore, Yasper De Buist, Cedric Bollens, and Sebastien Grignard.

Ewan was forced to have surgery to remove a plate from his collarbone shortly after the Tour de France. He missed the Commonwealth Games road race over the weekend, but returned to racing on Wednesday.

"I'm really happy to be racing again after the Tour de France. I've had a shoulder and arm injury for a couple of months and I'm hoping that the problem has been sorted out.

"To be realistic, the surgery and the week off obviously put me out of shape. So it's going to be hard to be a contender for the win right away, but it's a good race to get my legs moving again and get ready for the next season."

"The first goal is the Bemer Cyclassics Hamburg on August 21, followed by the five-day Deutschland Tour. After that we will be competing in several one-day events in order to focus on the World Championships in Australia."