Gerdemann hopes for a continued T-Mobile Team

By Susan Westemeyer

Linus Gerdemann doesn't know whether his T-Mobile Team will continue next season, but he hopes it will. "It would really be too bad if the good intentions of the (team's) anti-doping programme, which the team's new management introduced this year, would come to nothing because of sponsor withdrawal," he told the dpa press agency. "If a global player like T-Mobile leaves, then that would be a heavy blow for all of cycling."

The media shares responsibility for the current tense situation in cycling, the 25 year-old continued. "There is a certain sensationalism (in the media). Everyone knows that when they call a certain person, they can come up with certain headlines. But there is much too little reported about the progress in the fight against doping, in which a lot more must happen and whose goal we have not yet reached. We have to deal differently with the past and the future."

Gerdemann hopes that his team will continue next season with the same sponsor and the same team management under Bob Stapleton. He is also looking to the newly introduced blood passport. "That will bring us a lot further," he noted.

Meanwhile, the team applauded news that the UCI had declared that Michael Rogers was not implicated in statements given by Patrik Sinkewitz concerning doping on the team. "We appreciate the statement of the UCI and their review of the Sinkewitz information," team spokesman Stefan Wagner told Cyclingnews. "Independently, we continue to seek the files from the prosecutor so that we better understand the events of 2006 prior to our operation of the team."