T-Mobile, Gerolsteiner satisfied with Regio-Tour

Both German ProTour teams have reason to be satisfied with their performances in the Rothaus Regio Tour, which ended Sunday. They each won two stages, and T-Mobile took first and second overall, with Gerolsteiner claiming fourth.

Andreas Klöden finished second in the third stage, in the same time as breakaway partner and teammate Michael Rogers, to take over the leader's jersey. He cemented his placing by dominating the fourth stage time trial, where he finished 26 seconds ahead of who else but a Gerolsteiner rider, Marcus Fothen, and 45 seconds ahead of world time trial champion Rogers.

In Sunday's queen stage, which included a Cat. 1 climb that was tackled four times, Klöden and Rogers finished safely in the middle of the first large following group. "The whole team worked really well today," said Valerio Piva. "They controlled he race on the last difficult climb and so insured that Andreas and Michael could take the top two podium places."

Torsten Hiekmann, who won the final stage, is in his first year with Gerolsteiner - having been previously, of course, with T-Mobile. His win Sunday was his first for the sparkling-water team, and the team's 30th on the season.

"Torsten rode a great race. He was at the front for a long time and then was able to drop those with him," noted directeur sportif Reimund Dietzen, who added that it was "a perfect finale, which we had hoped for."

Gerolsteiner also won the second stage of the race, in the person of youngster Mattias Russ, who also won the young rider competition. "That was a great performance by Mattias, who did exceptionally well for such a youngster," said Dietzen.