Greipel with kidney infection

ProTour leader André Greipel is the latest addition to Team High Road's sick list. The sprinter has come down with a kidney infection, which has caused him to stop riding for an unknown amount of time.

Greipel took the ProTour lead when he dominated the first series' event this year. In the Tour Down Under he won the prologue and four of six stages to take the overall win. He had hoped to do well in the Spring Classics, but it now looks as if he will have to miss all of them. It started with Gent-Wevelgem, where he had to cancel his start due to an intestinal infection he got from his daughter. A few days later, he was not able to participate in Paris-Roubaix, due to a kidney infection.

"It's dumb, I have never before been really sick," he told the Norddeutsche Neueste Nachrichten. He does not know how long the painful infection will keep him from training, but he knows that rest and time are the only cures. "I sure won't start at the Tour de Georgia," he said.

The USA-based team has been hard hit by injuries and illnesses, the most serious of which are Marcus Burghardt's knee problem, Linus Gerdemann's broken leg and knee injury, and Michael Roger's recurrence of Epstein-Barr Syndrome. (SW)