The T-Mobile team continues its presence at the Belgian one-day races on Wednesday with the Dwars Door Vlaanderen, where it will field a squad almost identical to the line-up from Sunday's GP Rudy Dhaenens; sprinter André Korff replaces stage race specialist Tobias Steinhauser and Austrian neo-pro Bernhard Kohl is on the benches with flu.
The team missed the podium at GP Rudy Dhaenens and last Wednesday's Nokere-Koerse, but only just - Bas Giling was fifth at GP Rudy Dhaenens while Eric Baumann got fourth at Nokere-Koerse. Now the objective is a podium place. "The lads' form is on the up. Now our objective has to be to continue with this upward trend. Maybe Eric or Bas can pull off a surprise," said team press officer Luuc Eisenga.
Eisenga describes the 202km Dwars Door Vlaanderen course as "lumpy", an adjective that sums it up on two levels as it includes hills such as Eikenberg (8 percent), Valkenberg (10 percent) and Patersberg (14 percent) that are also used in the Tour of Flanders, and sections of cobbled road. The race starts in Kortrijk and winds its way through West and East Flanders to the finish in Waregem.
Eight other ProTour teams will also start in Kortrijk: Quick Step, Davitamon-Lotto, Credit Agricole, Cofidis, Francaise des Jeux, Rabobank, CSC, and Discovery Channel. 23 teams in total will line up.
T-Mobile's full roster for Dwars Door Vlaanderen: Eric Baumann, Marcus Burghardt, Bas Giling, André Korff, Jan Schaffrath, Bram Schmitz.
Directeur sportif will be Frans van Looy.
