German sprinter opening season for Lotto-Belisol at Tour Down Under
Andrei Greipel took the bronze medal (Image credit: Fotoreporter Sirotti)
Andre Greipel would liked to have had more than eight victories this past season, but his first stage win at the Tour de France made up for this and whetted his appetite for more. The German hopes to open the 2012 season with more wins for the new Lotto-Belisol team at the Tour Down Under in January.
“Of course I would have liked to have won a few more races, but then, I wanted to win a stage at the Tour and I did,” he said in a video on his website. “But it wouldn't be bad to win a few more next year, or to build on my success and win other big races.”
The German will open his season at the Tour Down Under, as he has done so often in the past. “We are practically a newly-formed team, and it is always good to start the season with a win, and of course we want to try that."
He will look to Greg Henderson, Marcel Sieberg and Jurgen Roelandts to help him win those sprints next year. “When the four of us work together well, it will really be hard to get by us. I won four stages at the Vuelta in 2009 with Henderson and Sieberg. That lets us look forward to something good. I think we are a well-harmonized team.”
Greipel rode with Sieberg and Roelandts at Omega Pharma-Lotto this year, with Henderson and Lars Bak coming over in 2012 from HTC-Highroad, Greipel's previous team. “I think that is an important step in improving our sprint train.”
The break-up of HTC-Highroad might well make things tougher for the individual sprinters next year, he said. With the many successful sprinters from the American team splitting up, “the whole know-how is going to other teams and of course all the teams will try to use that. At any rate there will be some drag races next year.”
Video: Enrico Muax
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