Being one of the most heavily sponsored teams, expectations will be high at the German headquarters of T-Mobile. Goal: The Tour de France. Lance Armstrong won’t be there in 2006, so Jan Ullrich is expected to win. Currently he’s the only rider in the peloton who’s won it before and that experience might just be the deciding factor.


Former sprinter, and now teamboss, Olaf Ludwig invested big to make sure the victory will be with the “pink squad”. Ullrich’s supportteam will probably be: Klöden, Guerini, Sevilla, Mazzoleni (Lampre), Honchar (Domina Vacance), Rogers and Sinkewitz (Quickstep). In a way, this team is so strong, they could almost push Ullrich all the way down to Paris, as a figure of speech, and still be the winner! They probably won’t even miss Alexandre Vinokourov (Liberty Seguros) on the Champs Elysees! Still no guarantee for succes, as many competitors will be lined up to be Armstrongs’ successor.


The spring classics will see Kessler, Wesemann and Klier as the main contenders in pink. Kessler is also able to perform well on hilly surfaces. His fast finish will come to his aid there. In those hills many others have to be taken into account. Kirchen (Fassa) and Bernucci (Fassa) have also won races before. T-Mobile has a very wide selection for the hilly classics.
Less experienced, but great talents, are Kohl and Burghardt. Both pretty fast finishers, but especially Burghardt is developing into an allrounder, judging by his performance in the 2005 Vuelta a España. André Greipel will get his first chance too, after coming over from Team Wiesenhof.


No top 5 sprinters in the team, but lots of fast finishers though. They did feel bad when top sprinter Zabel (Milram) decided to leave. Even more than Ullrich, Erik Zabel personified T-Mobile and meant a lot to the team. Now Korff and Pollack will have to prove their worth for the team in the mass-sprints. With Ziegler (Gerolsteiner) and Baumann and already having Kessler, Burghardt and Kohl in support, that should be enough to make some sort of impact in the sprint finishes.


We will probably see Mazzoleni and Honchar co-lead in the Giro d’Italia, where Oscar Sevilla has great expectations for the Vuelta a España, and will definitely lead the squad there. Luxury helpers Rogers, Sinkewitz and Ullrich will be there in support as well, amongst others.


But there is always the fear of failure within this team. In the past, T-Mobile (then Telekom) bought big names to guarantee succes. Botero, Savoldelli, Evans, all joined the team as top cyclists, and all left quietly without wins. So no guarantees there! This time though, they’ve adapted the CSC method of sending the whole team on winter camp and build the teamspirit. It will be exciting to see if that makes the difference the T-Mobile team is waiting for and get Ullrich’s much needed win in the Tour de France! Hate to think what will happen if he doesn’t win....


Additions to the team:
Lorenzo Bernucci, Scott Davis, Linus Gerdemann, André Greipel, Serhiy Honchar, Jörg Ludewig, Kim Kirchen, Eddy Mazzoleni, Frantisek Rabon, Michael Rogers, Patrik Sinkewitz, Thomas Ziegler


Left the team:
Alexandre Vinokourov, Sergey Yakovlev, Jan Schaffrath, Erik Zabel, Torsten Hiekmann, Tomas Konecny, Francisco Lara, Rolf Aldag, Tobias Steinhauser, Christian Werner