Klöden plans February comeback

T-Mobile rider Andreas Klöden says he will return to racing at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, Spain, February 21-25. Klöden will probably be hoping for better luck in 2006 than in recent years. His stellar ride to second place in the 2004 Tour de France was bracketed by disasters in 2003 when he broke his coccyx in a crash and 2005 when he broke his scaphoid.

That injury is just about healed, and Klöden is training in South Africa with his team-mates including Jan Ullrich. "My hand has recovered well and is giving me hardly any problems," he told German news agency dpa. "Sometimes I get a bit of mild pain in the forearm, but it's all tolerable."

Klöden will remain in South Africa until just before Christmas and then join the team again for another training camp in Mallorca in January. "In my daily training everything is going according to plan," he said. "I'm already somewhat better than at the same time in previous years."