March 17/11 11:30 am - Amgen Tour of California Announces Teams for 2011

Posted by Editoress on 03/17/11
 

The Amgen Tour of California (AToC) has announced the 19 teams that will compete at this year's race, to cover 800 miles (1284 kilometres) on May 15th to 22nd.  Nine ProTeams, four Pro Continental and six Continental teams have been selected, including Canada's SpiderTech b/b C10.

The 19-team field is comprised of a collection of the world's best professional cycling teams, including HTC-Highroad, the most successful team of the peloton with more than 400 wins since 2008, featuring sprint sensation Matthew Goss and promising young American Tejay Van Garderen; Team Garmin-Cervélo, one of the most powerful teams in the pro peloton with Americans David Zabriskie and Christian Vande Velde on the roster; three-time Amgen Tour of California champion Levi Leipheimer's team, Team RadioShack; Sky ProCycling, which features last year's overall Amgen Tour of California winner Michael Rogers; Saxo Bank Sungard, whose prolific sprinter Juan Jose Haedo will be looking to add to his five Amgen Tour of California stage wins this year; Rabobank Cycling Team, which includes Australian U23 world champion Michael Matthews; and BMC Racing Team, with veteran racing pro George Hincapie at the helm.

The 2011 Amgen Tour of California roster includes the following 19 teams:

UCI ProTeams

• Sky ProCycling (Great Britain)

• Rabobank Cycling Team (Netherlands)

• Team Garmin-Cervélo (USA)

• HTC-Highroad (USA)

• Team RadioShack (USA)

• Liquigas-Cannondale (Italy)

• Saxo Bank Sungard (Denmark)

• Leopard Trek (Luxembourg)

• BMC Racing Team (USA)

UCI Professional Continental Teams

• Team NetApp (Germany)

• Team Type 1-sanofi aventis (USA)

• Team Spidertech Powered By C10 (Canada)

• UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling (USA)

UCI Continental Teams

• Movistar Team (Colombia)

• Jamis-Sutter Home (USA)

• Kelly Benefit Strategies – Optum Health (USA)

• Bissell Pro Cycling (USA)

• Jelly Belly p/b Kenda (USA)

• Kenda/5-Hour Energy Pro Cycling p/b Geargrinder (USA)

"The caliber of teams participating in the Amgen Tour of California seems to grow with each passing year, which is a great testament to the status of our race on the professional racing calendar," said Andrew Messick, president of AEG Sports. "Beyond the incredible talent of Tour de France competitors, world champions, Olympic Champions and internationally known cyclists, is the amazing talent of up and coming American cyclists, like Peter Stetina of Team Garmin-Cervélo, Ben King of Team RadioShack and Tejay Van Garderen of HTC-Highroad. I am thrilled that our race gives them the opportunity to build their profile among cycling in the U.S."

Already known to be missing from the starting list is HTC-Highroad's sprinter Mark Cavendish, who will be racing the Giro d'Italia this year.  The date conflict is likely to reduce the number of major stars who attend the race - particularly Italian riders, or riders associated with Italian teams.