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Dumoulin, Degenkolb headline Giant-Alpecin's Worlds TTT roster

By Cycling News

published 4 October 2016

German team finished fifth in last year's race in Richmond

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Giant-Alpecin on course during the team time trial at the Eneco Tour(Image credit: Courtesy of Polartec-Kometa)

Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin)(Image credit: Bert Geerts/dcp-bertgeerts@xs4all.nl)

John Degenkolb (Giant-Alpecin) on the podium(Image credit: ASO)

Austrian champion Georg Preidler (Giant-Alpecin)(Image credit: Fotoreporter Sirotti)

Giant-Alpecin announced its six-man roster for the UCI Road World Championships team time trial on October 9 in Doha, Qatar, with Tom Dumoulin and John Degenkolb heading up the squad that finished fifth last year.

Søren Kragh Andersen, Chad Haga, Georg Preidler and Ramon Sinkeldam will join Dumoulin and Degenkolb on the roads around Doha. The 2016 roster is only slightly different than the 2015 sqaud, with Degenkolb and Anderson replacing Nikias Arndt and Tobias Ludvigsson. The 2015 team finished 1:04 behind gold medal winners BMC Racing.

"The team has had a good preparation period leading up to the team time trial at the worlds, with specific preparations in terms of equipment with the improved suits, and tactics with pacing analysis," said Giant-Alpecin coach Hans Timmerman. "On top of that, [we had] a good final test at last week's Eneco Tour."

Giant-Alpecin finished seventh in the team time trial during stage 5 of the Eneco Tour, coming in 33 seconds behind stage-winning BMC. That eight-rider squad included all six riders chosen for Doha, with the addition of Roy Curvers and Albert Timmer.

"Our main objective is to continue to make progress in this discipline," Timmermans said. "It will be important to focus and concentrate on our performance and if we manage to ride our best team time trial of the year both technically and process-wise, we could achieve a top five, which would be a fantastic result."

The 40km Worlds TTT route starts in the Lusail Sports Complex and finishes in the Pearl Qatar Island. The parcours is relatively flat with long straight roads and 14 corners.

Giant-Alpecin for UCI Road World Championships team time trial: Søren Kragh Andersen, John Degenkolb, Tom Dumoulin, Chad Haga, Georg Preidler, Ramon Sinkeldam