Team Green Edge signs another winner as Michael Albasini joins team for 2012 – Cycling News
Vuelta a Espana 2011 stage 13 winner Michael Albasini who is currently riding for HTC Highroad has signed with Team Green Edge for the next season.
Shayne Bannan who is the general manager of Team Green Edge stated that Albasini is a skilful rider and his inclusion in the team will really help in achieving their goals for the future. He further added that Michael’s stage winning performance at the Tour
de Suisse and the overall victory at the Tour of Austria in 2009 showed his skills as a climber along with his top performances at the time trials have been very impressive as well.
Albasini mentioned that he had heard a lot of good things about Bannan’s team and that he was hearing so many rumours but it was the first time in his career that a team has contacted him as he said, “When you’re at the peloton you always hear rumours and
I heard so many good things about Green Edge, which got me interested. But they called me,” He further added that. “This means GreenEdge values me as a rider and has confidence in me. This is important because I am a rider who needs the confidence of the team.”
The 30-year-old had no option but to decide a future team as his current team HTC has announced their closure by the end of 2011 as the team has failed to find a sponsor. Most of the team players, managers and staff members have already found a new home
and a stage win at the Vuelta a Espana was good enough to catch the attention of the teams and Green Edge was quick enough to cease the opportunity.
The Swiss briefed that he was trying for consecutively three days for this opportunity as the Vuelta a Espana has already been in its second week and the stage win has really boosted his confidence for the coming stages in the tour.
Team Green Edge has already signed most of their riders for the coming season and as of September 5, 2011 below is the list of cyclists to represent team Green Edge in 2012:
Michael Albasini of HTC-Highroad, Fumiyuki Beppu of RadioShack, Travis Meyer of RadioShack, Simon Clarke of Astana, Baden Cooke of Saxo Bank Sungard, Simon Gerrans of Team Sky, Jens Mouris of Vacansoleil, Sebastian Langeveld of Rabobank, Robbie McEwen of
RadioShack, Jack Bobridge of Garmin-Cervelo, Cameron Meyer of Garmin Cervelo, Stuart O’ Grady of Leopard Trek, Daniel Tedklehaymanot of Eritrea, Svein Tuft of Spider Tech, Matt Wilson of Garmin Cervelo, Thomas Vaitkus of Astana and Pieter Weening of Rabobank
have already made their way to the 2012 team GreenEdge.
Tags: