The HTC-Columbia team has announced its team for the Vuelta a España, which starts with a team time trial in Sevilla on Saturday. With no overall contender, the team will focus on taking stage wins primarily with the Manx Missile, sprinter Mark Cavendish.
"Our first goal is to get an early stage win with Mark," comments HTC-Columbia sports director Tristan Hoffman," and then we will see how it goes from there. He's in really good shape and very focussed, to the point that he didn't do any criteriums after the Tour de France. He's going to the Vuelta for the first time and he's taking it very seriously."
After the race Cavendish will be heading to the World Championships in Melbourne, Australia, where he will be leading the small Great Britain team in a bid for the rainbow jersey.
“He knows there's a lot of climbing but he did really well in the mountains in the Tour de France,” Hoffman added, “and he will be looking to race as strongly in September as he did in July."
Where the stage is not suited to Cavendish, the team will be looking to get into breakaways, as well as giving some experience to one of its yongest riders.
"Kanstantsin [Sivtsov] and Peter [Velits] will pick a good day on the climbs and we'll try and take as many wins as possible there too," said Hoffman. "Tejay [Van Garderen] is also keen to see what he can do in his first major Tour, although he's young and there'll be no pressure on him. So we've got lots of options, and we'll be giving it 100 percent."
HTC-Columbia team for Vuelta a Espana:
Lars Bak, Mark Cavendish, Bernhard Eisel, Matt Goss, Hayden Roulston, Konstantsin Sivtsov, Tejay Van Garderen, Martin Velits and Peter Velits