Team Milram, Germany’s only ProTour team, is keen for a good performance in the Vattenfall Cyclassics, Germany’s only ProTour race, this weekend. Gerald Ciolek, the team’s sprinter, was third in last year’s edition of the race and will lead the team on Sunday. With plenty of opportunities to attack on the 216km course though, the team will be keeping its options open.
"Vattenfall Cyclassics is the only ProTour race in Germany, so of course we want to perform especially well,“ explains Ralf Grabsch, Milram’s director. "We will be at the start with a strong squad on Sunday, so we want to play an important role in the race, especially in front of a German audience. And that's what we'll fight for.“
Although the race generally finishes in a bunch sprint, the course climbs the short but steep Waserberg four times; the last of which comes just 16km from the finish. This can provide an excellent launch pad for an attack but the sprinters’ teams are usually determined enough to prevent a breakaway from succeeding.
As well as his third place in last year’s race, Ciolek also took third in 2007, when he was a T-Mobile rider; he also took fifth in 2006, as a 20-year-old, riding for ProContinental team Wiesenhof Akud. Other Milram riders to enjoy good results in the Hamburg race include Fabian Wegmann, who was tenth in 2008, and Peter Wrolich, who was sixth that year and ninth in 2007; both riders were riding for the Gerolsteiner team at the time.
Besides Ciolek’s third place last year, the best performance by a rider in a Milram jersey was the fifth place of Erik Zabel in 2007. Zabel retired at the end of 2008 and now works for HTC-Columbia as sprint coach to Mark Cavendish.
With Milram’s sponsor, Bremen based Nordmilch, pulling out at the end of the season and no sign of a replacement being found, this could be the last appearance of a major German team in a major German race for some time.
Team Milram for the Vattenfall Cyclassics:
Gerald Ciolek, Markus Fothen, Linus Gerdemann, Christian Knees, Luke Roberts, Paul Voss, Fabian Wegmann and Peter Wrolich