Germans announce long Worlds list

Only one day after the close of the Olympic Games in Beijing, China, the Bund Deutscher Radfahrer (BDR, German cycling federation) has announced its preliminary selections for the World Championships in Varese, Italy, September 23 to 28. For the men's races, the BDR may send nine riders for the road race and two to the time trial.

Nominated from Team Columbia are Marcus Burghardt, Gerald Ciolek, Linus Gerdemann, Bert Grabsch, Andre Greipel, Tony Martin, and Marcel Sieberg. From Team Gerolsteiner are Markus Fothen, Heinrich Haussler, Sebastian Lang, Ronny Scholz, Stefan Schumacher and Fabian Wegmann. Team Milram candidates are Christian Knees, Björn Schröder and Erik Zabel. Also nominated is Paul Martens of Rabobank.

BDR will look to do better in Varese than in Beijing, where it won no medals on the road. In the 2007 Worlds in Stuttgart the Germans won two medals, with Hanka Kupfernagel taking the women's time trial title and Stefan Schumacher finishing third in the men's road race.

One big name missing from the long short list is CSC-Saxo Bank's Jens Voigt. The rider, who played an important roll in Carlos Sastre's Tour de France win, indicated after his Olympic Games appearance that he would skip the World Championships this year.

The women's and U-23 teams will be named at a later, the federation said.