Team Giant-Alpecin team has won Scheldeprijs for the past three seasons with Marcel Kittel  but the German sprinter will not line up for Wednesday's one-day classic as he continues to rebuild his form ahead of his coming objectives.

Team Giant-Alpecin comes to the race with a line-up who have been riding strongly in the northern classics over the past few weeks, including Nikias Arndt and Ramon Sinkeldam who give the team options if the race is to come down to a sprint once again here.

The race also sees the start of Lars van der Haar's road season after a break following his cyclo-cross campaign, his first race with the WorldTour team.

"Without Marcel in the line-up for Scheldeprijs we have to change our plan slightly but we will still focus on a sprint as this is the most likely outcome here," explained coach Rudi Kemna "We come here with other sprinters capable of getting a strong result in Nikias and Ramon so we will focus on them but also with an open strategy.

"When the opportunities present themselves to go on the attack or to get in promising breakaways we will also look to profit from these, and this is good for us and gives us options."

LINE-UP
Nikias Arndt (GER)
Roy Curvers (NED)
Bert De Backer (BEL)
Lars van der Haar (NED)
Ramon Sinkeldam (NED)
Tom Stamsnijder (NED)
Albert Timmer (NED)
Zico Waeytens (BEL)