Germany has announced its final men's line-up for its "home" World Championships this week in Stuttgart. Erik Zabel and Stefan Schumacher will lead the mean's team in the road race on Sunday.
That team will consist of Zabel (Milram), Schumacher (Gerolsteiner), Gerald Ciolek (T-Mobile), Marcus Burghardt (T-Mobile), David Kopp (Gerolsteiner), Ronny Scholz (Gerolsteiner), Christian Knees (Milram), Jens Voigt (CSC) and Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner). Replacement riders are Marcel Sieberg (Milram) and Stephan Schreck (T-Mobile). German champion Bert Grabsch (T-Mobile) and Sebastian Lang (Gerolsteiner) will ride the men's time trial.
The U23 selection will be headed by Alexander Gottfried, who is the most experienced. Tony Martin, who will be riding for T-Mobile next year, finished a convincing second at the Tour de l'Avenir, even having had the yellow jersey for a couple of days. Coach Bernd Dittert can also count on Mathias Belka, Simon Geschke and Dominic Klemme. The individual time trial will be contested by Marcel Kittel, who has won two world championships titles as a junior in the discipline and Stefan Schäfer, who won the junior's bronze medal in 2004.
For the women's time trial national coach Jochen Dornbusch will be able to count on Hanka Kupfernagel, who has always a chance of winning, no matter if it's on the road, in the time trial or in the cross races. Charlotte Becker will also wear the red jersey of the national team in the race against the clock.
In the road race Kupfernagel will be accompanied by Judith Arndt, who said she would give up own ambitions if another woman on her team would have better chances. Her recent second place in the Ladies Expert Tour however showed that she is on form. Additionally there is current German champion Luise Keller and her predecessor, Claudia Häusler. The team is completed by Eva Lutz and Trixie Worrack. Sprinters like Regina Schleicher or Ina-Yoko Teutenberg were not nominated.
"We have good teams on the start with the men as well as the women and the U23 squads, and want to contest for the medals in all three classes," said the German federation's sport director Burckhard Bremer to the sid news agency.
Hans-Michael Holczer of Gerolsteiner and T-Mobile's Jan Schaffrath will serve as sport directors. Gerolsteiner's Christian Henn and T-Mobile's Rolf Aldag were specifically excluded from participation, because of the doping confessions this past spring.
Aldag told the dpa that "I wouldn't have done it anyway." As an alternative, he proposed the nomination of former sprinter Marcel Wüst as the team's sports director. "Wüst is independent, knows the scene from his active days and from the perspective of a TV commentator. He would surely be accepted by everyone."
