Kohl instead of Greipel to T-A for T-Mobile

Bernhard Kohl will be replacing Andre Greipel at Tirreno-Adriatico for Team T-Mobile, the team announced Tuesday. Greipel, who is recovering from the 'flu, "was still on a course of antibiotics for his sickness until Monday last, and the race has come a little too soon for him as he works on returning to full fitness," the team said.

Kohl had been planning to use the time to train alone "and tank up some strength for the long season," he writes at www.bernhardkohl.at. But he has been a pro cyclist long enough to know that things rarely work out as planned, and the phone call telling him to pack his bags for Italy "was a little surprising, but I am looking forward to the next racing days."

He is also looking forward to meeting his "old friend" Levi Leipheimer again, who has announced that he "absolutely wants to win the race. When someone like him says something like that, then it means something. That makes it look good for me, because I wasn't so far behind him in California," said the young Austrian.