Jan Ullrich, the recent runner up in the Deutschland Tour, will be back in action again this Sunday in the Grand Prix Ouest France-Plouay. The one-day race in Brittany, the traditional home of French cycling, forms part of the UCI ProTour. The T-Mobile captain will be joined by Alexander Vinokourov on the undulating parcours. The dual 2005 Tour de France stage winner dropped out of the Deutschland Tour because of a cold. Matthias Kessler also forms part of the team, and is the third Tour de France rider who will race for T-Mobile in Plouay. The seven man roster is rounded off by Torsten Hiekmann, Jan Schaffrath, Christian Werner, and Sergey Yakovlev.
Team director Valerio Piva's expects a tough, fast race. "Especially the French teams will be highly motivated," said Piva, who calls the region close to the French Atlantic coast "one of the most cycling-crazy areas in France." Year after year, more than 100,000 spectators swarm to the Circuit Jean-Yves Perron. Piva sees this as an advantage: "We are not pressed to set the pace, instead we can keep an eye on how the race develops. If Jan Ullrich can maintain his form from the Deutschland-Tour, we may have a chance at the finale."
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