Spanish team Liberty Seguros has announced its line-up for the first ProTour race this season. Headed by Jörg Jaksche, who will be trying to defend his title from last year, the squad further includes Dariusz Baranowski, Alberto Contador, Koen De Kort, Igor Gonzalez De Galdeano, Aaron Kemps, Javier Ramírez and Luis Léon Sánchez.
Germany's T-Mobile Team will be led by two-time champion Alexander Vinokourov. He will be joined by classics specialists Danile Nardello and Sergey Ivanov, as well as Oscar Sevilla, Bram Schmitz and Torsten Hiekmann. Andre Korff will lead out the sprints of the first stages for newcomer Olaf Pollack.
French team Cofidis will have Sylvain Chavanel and David Moncoutié as team leaders, while Australian Stuart O'Grady will skip Paris-Nice and participate in Italian stage race Tirreno-Adriatico instead. Further included in the squad are: Frédéric Bessy, Jimmy Casper, Jimmy Engoulvent, Bingen Fernandez, Luis Perez and Dmitriy Fofonov.
The Française des Jeux team will have to do without Sandy Casar for Paris-Nice, as the 25 year-old still has not recovered from a cold. Casar placed second on the race's General Classification in 2002. "It would be too early to start in Paris-Nice, for sure," said directeur sportif Marc Madiot, who is not even sure about sending Casar to Tirreno-Adriatico starting Wednesday, March 9. Therefore, Philippe Gilbert, Christophe Detilloux, Freddy Bichot, Frédéric Finot, Fabien Sanchez, Benoît Vaugrenard, Thomas Lovkvist and Ian McLeod will compete for the French team at the "race to the sun".
Finally, AG2R has announced Jean-Patrick Nazon clear to take the start on Sunday. Mikel Astarloza, Iñigo Chaurreau, Cyril Dessel, Andy Flickinger, Stéphane Goubert, Nicolas Portal and Ludovic Turpin have also been announced to depart.
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