The man who likes to be known as an innovator in cycling and a leader in the fight against doping, Bob Stapleton, got a slap in the face last year. Positive tests and doping stories of Sinkewitz, Bernucci and Honchar are not really good promotion for your ‘clean’ team.


But this year things will change. All historical, contaminated connections with the University of Freiburg were finally broken and nowadays the team management is literally on the rider’s skin. Sponsor T-Mobile had enough of it and left cycling. This year manager Stapleton will pay for the team, helped by the sum of money that T-Mobile paid to work their way out of the contract. Next year, a new sponsor must be found, and not a small one, because all that talent requires serious cash.


At least there was plenty of money left to sign, next to some big names, also some young talents. And everyone of those talents has the potential to become worldclass. Boasson Hagen, Martin as top time trial specialists, Devine, Lewis, Lövkvist, Possoni, Siutsou for mountanous terrain and Reynes and Sieberg as allround sprinters, also quite useful in early spring. All of them were born after 1980. For experience, Hincapie and Wiggins (still only 28) were added to the new and clean squad.


When Stapleton, sitting on his pile of money like the well known cartoon character, will look at the results of last winter he will be satisfied. All riders who left were fine, but they didn’t come close to the results and talent of the new signings. Bernucci and Sinkewitz got suspended, Honchar went to Preti Mangimi. Piil, Merckx, Ziegler and Guerini retired, while the not so talented sprinters Baumann (Team Sparkasse) and Korff (Team Volksbank) took a step back. The loss of Schreck (gerolsteiner) and Olson (Bissell Pro Cycling) will not cause any loss of sleep for Stapleton either.


In short, the team has so much talent that the failing of one rider can easily be covered by another. With the illness of Rogers there might only be a problem to finish high in the general classification of the Tour de France, but perhaps Lövkvist will finally fulfil his promise and finish in the top 10. For all other races, and mostly in sprints (Cavendish, Ciolek, Boasson, Eisel, Greipel, Sieberg), the team has (too) many options. Let’s just hope that this twenty-nine large star-ensemble won’t start complaining.


In
Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Maxbo Bianchi), John Devine, George Hincapie (Discovery Channel), Craig Lewis (Team Slipstream), Thomas Lövkvist (Française des Jeux), Tony Martin (Thüringer Energie Team), Morris Possoni (Lampre-Fondital), Vicente Reynes (Caisse d'Epargne), Marcel Sieberg (Team Milram), Kanstantin Sioutsou (Barloworld), Bradley Wiggins (Cofidis)


Out
Eric Baumann (Team Sparkasse), Lorenco Bernucci, Patrik Sinkewitz (suspended), Giuseppe Guerini, Axel Merckx, Jakob Piil, Thomas Ziegler (retired), Serhiy Honchar (Preti Mangimi), André Korff (Team Volksbank), Aaron Olsson (Bissel Pro Cycling), Stephan Schreck (Gerolsteiner)