Team Columbia presents Tour squad, new jersey
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For the second consecutive day, an American team kicked off its Tour de France by unveiling a fresh jersey design created for a new title sponsor.
Team Columbia, the former T-Mobile team referred to as Team High Road for the first half of the 2008 season, presented its new look and new sponsor in front of a packed press conference at the Penfeld Parc des Expositions in Brest, France, where the Tour will start Saturday morning.
The presentation began with television commentators Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggett praising American team owner Bob Stapleton’s rescue of the squad after T-Mobile walked away from cycling last fall. Stapleton quickly turned the attention away from himself and towards the team’s surprising tally of near 50 victories this season.
“I can’t tell you how happy I am to be here with a wonderful group of athletes, a wonderful staff and a wonderful new sponsor in Columbia,” Stapleton said. “I’m very proud of the success our team has had. What makes me the most happy about it is the way they’ve been successful — they’ve really worked well as a team.”
Stapleton emphasized both the team’s youth and international composition. Columbia’s Tour team has nine riders from eight countries, with five riders under 25 years old, and two — Gerald Ciolek and Adam Hansen — making their Tour debuts.
Also making a Tour debut is Columbia Sportswear, which makes its first foray into sports sponsorship with the team backing.
Columbia’s European manager Christan Fennell explained that the reasons prompting the sportswear company’s to enter pro cycling were threefold — cyclists’ tendencies to also participate in activities such as hiking, skiing and running; an opportunity to promote Columbia’s patented Omni-Shade ultraviolet ray protection technology; and cycling’s position as the third largest spectator sport behind only the Olympics and World Cup soccer.
With operations in more than 90 countries, Fennell said the team’s youth and international flavor was a perfect fit.
“We will have good coverage in our main markets with this team,” Fennell said. “The team is not only successful overall, but shows a strong potential for the future. Also, Bob Stapleton and the team have engaged into fair competition, and that is very important for us.”
Columbia comes to the Tour with two objectives — sprint wins courtesy of Mark Cavendish, who will be supported by Ciolek, Bernard Eisel and Adam Hansen, and a top-10 GC ride from Kim Kirchen, who will be supported in the high mountains by time trial specialist Thomas Lovkvist and this year’s Tour de Georgia champion Kanstantin Sivtsov.
Kirchen, winner of Fleche Wallone in April, finished seventh overall at the 2007 Tour and said he hopes to improve this year.
“I learned a lot last year about being consistent,” Kirchen said. “It gives me confidence going into this Tour that I can be there for three weeks. I’m not worried about any one rider in particular, I’m just concerning myself with doing my own race being on a good level on the key stages.”
In many ways Columbia’s composition is similar to that of Davitamon-Lotto was in 2006 — a squad half devoted to a proven sprinter and half devoted to a GC contender looking to make the jump to the podium. However unlike that year’s team of Robbie McEwen and Cadel Evans, Columbia’s squad shows greater depth, with several sprinters capable of winning stages and wildcard riders like Lovkist, American George Hincapie and German Marcus Burghardt — men capable of contributing in both the sprints and mountains as well as winning out of breakaway groups.
“I’ll do as well as I can in the time trials,” Lovkvist said. “Then I’ll ride as hard as I can in the mountains before I sit up and find a group to ride in with. I’m not going to be concerned with my own classification. It’s all for Kirchen.”
Columbia director Rolf Aldag said the team would treat each stage like 21 individual races, adding, “Kim [Kirchen] is going for the general classification. In an ideal world we will finish in Paris with a top five finish and two stage wins.”
However if Cavendish has his way, he’ll have a few stage wins banked by the end of the first week. The 23-year-old from the United Kingdom has emerged as one of the fastest sprinters in the sport over the past two seasons, winning two stages of his first Giro d’Italia in May. Cavendish said he doesn’t feel any pressure about being a favorite to win stages.
“I have so much confidence in my team, so it takes the pressure away,” Cavendish said. “You’ve seen how good our team is, you’ve seen how good I am at the finish. Why should I be scared of anyone else?”
Hincapie, who is entering his 13th Tour, will play a dual role, supporting both the team’s sprint and GC efforts while acting as the team’s road captain. The American veteran seems to be having the time of his life at Columbia, and said he looks forward to helping in the sprint lead-outs as well as looking for opportunities to take a stage win.
“I’m looking forward to starting the race and getting to business,” Hincapie said. “I feel good. I’m ready to race.”
