On the back of the news that Mark Cavendish is to ride January’s Santos Tour Down Under, HTC-Highroad has announced the rest of the team that will ride with the Manx superstar. As well as stage wins through Cavendish though, the team will also be chasing the overall classification, which it has won in two of the past three years with André Greipel.
Although the big German sprinter will be moving over to the OmegaPharma-Lotto team for 2011, where he will be a big rival to Cavendish, the team still feels it has what it takes to win the race.
"Santos Tour Down Under is obviously a very important race in our calendar," said HTC-Highroad team manager Rolf Aldag. "The team has won the overall and multiple stages the last three years. As a team, we enjoy the chance to prove that the hard work during the winter has paid off. The motivation from early wins at Tour Down Under gives the whole team a big boost for the first part of the season.”
While the team will be aiming to capture the overall leader’s jersey, due to the unpredictable nature of the race Aldag has not declared a specific leader at this stage.
"We will start with a very strong roster and we want to target GC and stage wins,” he said. “We have proven that this is possible and everybody knows of the importance of the race. The organisation is perfect, with big support from the local crowd and we are looking forward to starting our 2011 racing season there."
The Santos Tour Down Under will run from January 16th to 23rd in and around Adelaide, South Australia; it will be the first ever event of the International Cycling Union (UCI) World Tour, which replaces the ProTour at the top level of the sport.
HTC-Highroad for Santos Tour Down Under:
Mark Cavendish, Bernhard Eisel, Bert Grabsch, Matt Goss, Hayden Roulston, Mark Renshaw and Danny Pate.