Cycling: The choice of the NetApp-Endura team for the Tour de France has been made. Nine drivers can be happy. There are no surprises in the squad.
With Andreas Schillinger and Paul Voss, two Germans can look forward to their debut in the Tour of France. At the head of the squad, however, is someone else. The Czech Leopold König, who impressed at the Vuelta last year, will lead the Raublinger racing team on the tour. It's also the tour premiere for him.
“We’re approaching the Tour with the necessary respect but also with confidence. We’ve just completed the most successful first half of a season in our team’s history, and naturally, the guys are extremely motivated. Our primary goal is to get Leo König into the top 15 of the general classification. With de la Cruz, Huzarski, Machado, and Mendes, we have four climbers to support him. We also want to be in contention for a stage win. With Barta and Dempster, as well as our experienced German riders Schillinger and Voss, we have very good options for the challenging stages ,” said team manager Ralph Denk on the team’s website.
In France, NetApp-Endura would like to continue the success of the Vuelta 2013. Here König managed to win a stage and ended up ninth in the overall standings. But there will certainly also be opportunities for the group of aggressive rouleurs in the team.
The team
Jan Barta (29 / CZE)
David de la Cruz (25 / ESP)
Zak Dempster (26 / AUS)
Bartosz Huzarski (33 / POL)
Leopold Koenig (26 / CZE), Tiago Machado (28 / POR)
Jose Mendes (29 / POR)
Andreas Schillinger (30 / GER)
Paul Voss (28 / GER)