With six victories so far, Matt Goss has been the most successful HTC-Highroad rider of 2011, and he is heading for the start of Paris-Nice on Sunday in search of his seventh. So far the Australian has taken two stages and the overall of the Jayco Bay Classics, the Cancer Council Classic, stage 1 of the Santos tour Down Under and stage 2 of the Tour of Oman.
With the first two stages eminently suitable for sprinters, Goss is hopeful that his early season form can continue.
"I've done Paris-Nice once before and it didn't go too badly,” he said, “but this season has been the best start I've ever had to a year, so that's great for my confidence.
"There are two flat stages at the start of the race, so the leader's jersey is a possibility, which makes it pretty exciting."
While the first two stages suit the Australian, as the race heads south it gets hillier and hillier, and tougher and tougher.
"The third stage is hillier,” he explained, “particularly at the end, but I'll try my best there, afterwards in the mountainous stages it'll be a question of working for the team's GC guys and getting good form for the Classics."
As well as Goss, the team includes other riders who have already been successful this season.
"We've got a pretty well-balanced team with a lot of the guys coming out of the Volta ao Algarve [Portugal] where we got first and second overall with Tony Martin and Tejay Van Garderen," explained HTC-Highroad sports director Allan Peiper.
"Matt's had great form since the start of the year so it's only normal for him to want to get some more wins in. We're also very hopeful about Tony's chances in the general classification."
The Paris-Nice format has changed for 2011, with the usual prologue eschewed in favour of a longer time trial mid-race. This particular stage is one that suits both Martin and Van Garderen, and is one where they can improve their overall classification ambitions.
"The mid-race time trial is long enough to decide a lot of what happens overall, and we know that Tony and Tejay, who are both specialists in that area, are going well,” added Peiper. “Paris-Nice has a really good field this year, but we've got two very good cards to play overall."
HTC-Highroad for Paris-Nice:
Lars Bak, Matt Goss, Tony Martin, Danny Pate, Alex Rasmussen, Kanstantsin Svitsov, Tejay Van Garderen and Martin Velits.