Last year’s Tour of Britain winner and recent King of the Mountains in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, Michael Albasini, has got HTC Highroad’s backing to lead the team in Sunday’s Amstel Gold Race.
The 30 year old Swiss rider has previously taken top ten finishes in another of the Ardennes Classics, Flèche Wallonne, and that form of solid uphill performance is something which will stand to him this weekend. He’ll hope to step it up a level, though, drawing confidence from those aforementioned performances in Britain and Spain, plus his fourth place in the Tour of Oman earlier this season.
"Michael's shown he's in top condition and we expect he'll be up there with the other favorites when the race enters its decisive phase. He's definitely got the form, and he knows all the Ardennes Classics well. We'll make sure he's well-protected in the first part of the race,” said directeur sportif Valerio Piva.
Albasini will be backed by Italian TT champ Marco Pinotti, Irish road race title holder Matt Brammeier, German neo-pro John Degenkolb, Jan Ghyselinck plus the American trio of Caleb Fairly, Craig Lewis and Danny Pate.
Piva said that he has faith that Albasini can pull off a solid result. “He's shown he's good on these kinds of climbs, and after the Basque Country we're very optimistic. The rest of the HTC-Highroad team will be either looking after Michael or seeing what they can do in early breaks.”
However he also conceded that the selection could be more powerful. “We've not got the strongest Amstel squads this year, but this is a good chance for everybody to try and get in moves and take the initiative.”