By Susan Westemeyer
Marcel Sieberg ended his season in the beginning of October with the Münsterland Giro, where he finished fourth, but he is hardly taking it easy in the off-season, finding time for contract negotiations, team meetings and surgery before he starts apartment hunting and preparing to move.
The tall (1,98 meters) German spent two weeks in Egypt on the Red Sea immediately after the conclusion of his season. Once he got back to Germany, he went directly into negotiations, first to end his contract with Team Milram a year early and then to sign with T-Mobile Team for two years. He met with his future team-mates at the first meeting for the team last week in Cologne, yet most of them could hardly be called strangers, as he has ridden on the same teams as Linus Gerdemann, Andre Greipel and Gerald Ciolek in the past.
Since then the 25 year old has undergone surgery to rectify a problem he has been suffering with since his childhood days. "Ever since my childhood I have had troubles with my nose. And my sinuses have also always given me problems," Sieberg said on t-mobile-team.de, "now I hope not to have any more breathing problems in the future." Sieberg hopes to be able to begin his preparations for the 2008 season in around 10 days.
Once he is up and about again, he will look to leave his current home in Dortmund and move to the Cologne area, where he can train with Greipel and Ciolek, both of whom live in the area.
The move would also put him closer to the races he most loves. "I like the Belgian Classics," he noted. "I will ride the whole spring program and then a few smaller stage races."
