Milram sprinter Robert Förster is heading across the pond for the 2011 season to ride for the American UnitedHealthCare team, according to Belga. The German's current team was unable to find a sponsor to replace Milram for next season, so he's decided to ply his trade in the bunch sprints overseas.
This will mark the first time the 32 year old will ride for a foreign team. He began his pro cycling career in 2001 with Team Nürnberger. After two seasons there he spent six years with the Gerolsteiner squad until it folded at the end of 2008. The next logical step for the sprinter was to ride for the Milram squad in 2009.
His best seasons were in 2006 and 2007 where he captured a total of three stages in the Giro d'Italia and on in the Vuelta a Espana, along with successes in the Ster Elektrotoer, the Danmark Rundt, the Circuuit de la Sarthe, the Deutschland Tour and the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali.
Förster has raced in the United States twice. First at the Tour of California in 2007, and then the Tour of Georgia in 2008, where he landed on the podium in the first stage.