Omega Pharma-Quick Step has announced the line up that is to defend its title in the World team time trial championships at the weekend, with individual champion Tony Martin at its head. Most of the Belgian team’s riders were in Canada last week for the Grands Prix Québéc and Montreal, and so will ride tomorrow’s GP de Wallonie to get the themselves reacclimatised to Central European Time.
"The team will be perfectly captained by Tony Martin, current World Champion in this specialty, and we will also be able to count on the same structure that made up the winning team in the 2012 World Championships: Sylvain Chavanel, Niki Terpstra, Peter Velits and Kristof Vandewalle," said directeur sportif Tom Steels. "Michal Kwiatkowski is the team's new entry. The two backup riders will be Julien Vermote and Zdenek Stybar.
"With the exception of Tony Martin, the team will participate in Wednesday's GP de Wallonie, which will be an important event that will help them recover quicker from their jet lag after their return from Canada," Steels explained. "It will also be a good chance to put in a final intensive effort before flying off to Florence.”
The team has not had an incident-free lead up to the World championships, but Steels feels sure that nether Kristof Vandewalle - who crashed out of the Vuelta a España - nor Michal Kwiatkowski - who crashed in Montreal - will feel any ill effects.
“Fortunately, Kwiatkowski only has a few scrapes to his right side and right elbow as consequence of yesterday's crash and Vandewalle has resolved some small problems after the crash in the Vuelta,” Steels said. “On Thursday the squad will meet up in Montecatini and starting that afternoon they will be doing a workout on the route. It will be important to memorise the route and the curves immediately.
“Until now the preparation has been going well,” Steels concluded. “We carried out some tests in Zolder a few weeks ago and we collected some important information by doing a recon with our technical staff. Of course, the road will ultimately decide the race, but our goal will definitely be to defend the title we captured last year using all of our forces."
Omega Pharma-Quick Step for the World team time trial championship
Sylvain Chavanel, Michal Kwiatkowski, Tony Martin, Niki Terpstra, Peter Velits and Kristof Vandewalle