This year’s Tour of Britain will be the last one entered by the HTC Highroad team, which has clocked up close to 500 victories in four years and is aiming to win the race for the third consecutive time. Last year Michael Albasini did the honours, taking a stage and wearing yellow all the way to London. VeloNation has an exclusive signed jersey from that victorious team to give away this week; Albasini, Tony Martin, André Greipel, Marco Pinotti, Mark Renshaw and Bert Grabsch were all part of that glittering team, their line-up one of the strongest in the history of the event.
Since then the riders have all had considerable success; Martin won Paris-Nice, the Volta ao Algarve and the time trial in the Critérium du Dauphiné, then went on to take TT victories in both the Tour de France and Vuelta a España. Fabian Cancellara may have dominated this branch of the past few years, but Martin will head to next week’s world championships as arguably the biggest favourite to take gold.
Albasini’s Tour of Britain success has given him a boost in confidence and he recently took an assured stage victory in the Vuelta a España, showing he has moved to a new level.
Greipel clocked up a stage win in this year’s Tour de France for the Omega Pharma Lotto team. Renshaw has continued being a crucial part of the HTC Highroad squad, and this July helped Mark Cavendish to extend his career tally to 20 Tour de France stage wins. He also aided the Manxman take the green jersey for the first time. Personal successes include a stage win plus the overall classification in the 2011 Tour of Qatar.
Pinotti was part of the victorious team time trial lineup in the Giro d’Italia and wore the Maglia Rosa. Grabsch became German national time trial champion for the third time and also won the race against the clock in the Tour of Austria.
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