Team NetApp with wild card invitation to Tour de Suisse

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Then NetApp took over on the front(Image credit: Bosco Martin)

Team NetApp has been invited to another WorldTour race, getting a wild-card invitation to the Tour de Suisse (June 11-19). The highest-ranking German team, in its first Professional Continental year, will also ride Paris-Roubaix and the Vattenfalls Cyclassics.

“I’d like to thank the organisers of the Tour de Suisse. For us, the race is a big task, but it also represents a great opportunity for our team. Traditionally, the tour involves outstanding talent," said team manager Ralph Denk. “With two time trials and three mountain finishes in nine days it will be an entirely new experience for our classification riders. It’s with just such tasks that we want to grow as a team.”

The team can send two Swiss riders to their homeland race: U23 national champion Michael Baer and veteran Andreas Dietziker. “The fifth and sixth stages will pass by my hometown of Aadorf,” Dietziker said. “One of them will even have a sprint classification right in front of my home. I'm sure that my mother, friends and club mates will be lined up along the street. I have big plans for that day.”

“It’s a tight program for us, which we’ve been working towards very deliberately,” Denk said. “We’ve reinforced our team for this season with classification riders like the young Leopold Konig and the old hand Jesus del Nero. After the end of the classics season, this phase of the season will be an important way of determining our position. After all, we still want to apply for WorldTour status in 2012.”