Andre Greipel charged up for the Tour de France 2012
Andre Greipel of Team Lotto-Belisol is the most in-form sprinter lined up to mark his second appearance at the Tour de France 2012.
The cyclist had a positive start to his debut Tour de France last year with a stage 10 victory at the race.
Andre is having a terrific season and has already filled his bag with as many 14 victories in the first part of the 2012.
The German opened his winning account with a first place finish at the Cancer Council Helpline Classic and also won the ProRace Berlin.
He has a dozen stage victories to his credit, including three stages at the Santos Tour Down Under, two at the Tour of Oman, one at the Tour of Turkey, three at the Tour of Belgium, two at the Tour of Luxembourg and one stage at the Ster ZLM Toer.
Andre managed to overcome Mark Renshaw and Mark Cavendish during the second stage of the Ster ZLM Toer and proved his dominance over his two major rivals at the Tour.
"With Marcel Sieberg, Jürgen Roelandts and Greg Henderson, I have the best and fastest pilots imaginable at my side," Andre stated on the team’s website.
"This is the way that I could collect seven victories in the last four weeks”.
“It is an important foundation for the Tour and I could prove that I belong among the best sprinters. So I am looking forward to my second Tour".
He thanked the team management for showing their faith in him for such an important race of the season.
Team Omega Pharma-Quick Step is having a terrific season with as many as 640 UCI points in its bag and currently holds the fourth overall position at the UCI World Tour team’s rankings.
Team Sky is leading the category with 803 UCI points with Team Katusha (716 points) and Team Liquigas-Cannondale (657 points) holding the second and third positions respectively.
The Belgian side is sending a powerful squad at the race and is targeting the general classifications.
The final squad to represent Team Omega-Pharma Quick Step at the most awaited cycling event of the year is as under,
Sylvain Chavanel (Fra), Kevin De Weert (Bel), Dries Devenyns (Bel), Bert Grabsch (Ger), Levi Leipheimer (USA), Tony Martin (Ger), Jérôme Pineau (Fra), Stijn Vandenbergh (Bel) and Peter Velits (Svk).
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