T-Mobile, Milram for upcoming races

On Wednesday, April 18, T-Mobile and Milram will be two of the ProTour teams contesting the GP Scheldeprijs, Flanders' oldest race. The 197 km one-day race starts in the port city of Antwerp and takes the peloton over flat terrain in northern Flanders before concluding with three laps of a circuit in Merksem, on the edge of Antwerp.

Last year, Tom Boonen won the sprint of a 22-rider lead group. "We will be making sure that we are always represented in any groups that get away," said directeur sportif Alan Peiper of T-Mobile. "Each rider can ride his own race, attack or counter-attack." In the event of a bunch showdown, the Australian will be looking to the top-end speed of André Greipel and Mark Cavendish, with the likes of Greg Henderson, Bernhard Eisel and André Korff ready to lead out their teammates. Rounding out the roster in Belgium for T-Mobile are Scott Davis, Servais Knaven and Aaron Olson.

On Thursday, April 19, an almost unchanged roster moves southwards to the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France for the GP de Denain. Eric Baumann and the Briton Roger Hammond slot in to replace Bernhard Eisel and Servais Knaven, but tactically there are no changes.

After 99 km loop over pan-cake flat terrain, the peloton will tackle eight laps of 12.5 km circuit for a total of 199.4 kilometres well-suited to sprinters. Amongst many other squads, T-Mobile will be up against team Milram, which is sending Mirco Lorenzetto, Elia Rigotto, Alberto Ongarato, Sebastian Siedler, Niki Terpstra, Ralf Grabsch and Martin Müller to the French one-day race.