HIGH ROAD TO BUILD ON 2007 SUCCESS IN L’AUDE

Publiceret af: danny 2008-05-15

High Road starts this year’s Tour de L’Aude on Friday convinced they have successfully changed their focus from the spring Classics campaign to the stage racing of the early summer.

“We’re coming into L’Aude after a bit of a break in racing, and it’s never easy in any case to change your strategy from one type of event to another. But we’re sure we’ve got it right. Everybody’s very motivated.” commented sports director Ronny Lauke.

High Road will wait until a tough 8.5 kilometre climb mid way through Saturday’s stage of L’Aude before forming a definitive plan of action.

“There is nowhere to hide on that climb, it’ll be hard enough to tell you a lot about our riders and our rivals and how they’ll perform later on in the Pyrenees.”

“Once we’ve come through that stage and got a better idea of everybody’s exact condition, we’ll work out a long-term strategy for the rest of the race.”

“The team time trial on Sunday is another big goal for High Road, too, it’s a stage which always pulls the squad together as a unit.”

Last year the squad snapped up four stage wins as well as a third place overall for Judith Arndt.

”That was very good, but this time round, we’re convinced we can push it up another level.”

Arndt starts l’Aude as team leader for the GC “because she’s already proved on countless occasions that she’s one of the best in the world when it comes to this sort of racing.”

Neither High Road’s Oenone Wood nor Chantal Beltman, both of whom have had successful spring campaigns, will be taking part. “That’s because it was always planned they should rest up before coming back for the second half of the season. They’ll both be doing the GP Montreal in June.”

“But we’ve got exactly the squad we need to make a big impact on the Tour de L’Aude.”

High Road for Tour de L’Aude: Judith Arndt (Ger); Luise Keller (Ger); Alex Rhodes (Aus); Ina-Yoko Teutenberg (Ger); Linda Villumsen (NZL); Anke Wichmann (Ger).