Management

GREENEDGE CYCLING TEAM (GEC) - AUS

The GreenEdge Cycling Team is the first ever Australian UCI WorldTour team and confirms the continued globalization of men’s professional cycling.

Australia riders have won some of the sports biggest races in recent year. Now many of them are riding together and have the support of a cycling mad nation in the southern hemisphere. This was clear to see at the Tour Down Under in January and the team lived up to expectations by securing overall victory with Simon Gerrans. He also won the Milano-Sanremo classic in March, to give GreenEdge Cycling Team a dream start to the 2012 season.

Team manager Shayne Bannan is the former head of the Australian national team and has applied the same rigor and seriousness that saw the green and gold colours dominate on the track for the last 20 years. Bannan has build an impressive squad that intends to target the classics and sprint wins before developing stage race talent in years to come. Matt White, Neil Stephens, Lionel Marie, Vittorio Algeri and Daniele Nardello call the tactics from the team cars and can trust veterans such as Robbie McEwen, Stuart O’Grady, Baden Cooke, Michael Albasini, Julian Dean, Brett Lancaster and Matt Wilson to help the talented young riders live up to their potential.

Names to remember include stage racer and track rider Cameron Meyer, time trial talents Jack Bobridge and Luke Durbridge, and sprinters Matt Goss, Jens Keukeleire and Leigh Howard. It will also be fascinating to see how Daniel Teklehaimanot of Eritrea performs in the UCI WorldTour.

The team’s green and black kit turned some heads in the peloton at the start of the UCI WorldTour calendar in Australia, as do the national champion’s jersey of Japan’s Fumiyuki Beppu and that of Canadian time trialist and hard man Svein Tuft. Both are national time trial and road race champions, while Gerrans proudly wears the Australian national road race champion’s jersey and is the symbolic leader of the GreenEdge team and its ambitions for 2012.