T-Mobile Team

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Presentation of the 2006 team in Mallorca. Photo: T-Mobile Team

T-Mobile Team (UCI Team Code: TMO) is a professional cycling team competing in international road bicycle races. It carries, like many road cycling teams, the name of its owners and chief sponsor - the T-Mobile company. The team participates in many editions of the annual Grand Tours of cycling, such as the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia. Since 2005, the team has been one of 20 teams that compete in the new UCI ProTour.

The team was founded in 1991 as Team Telekom, sponsored by T-Mobile's corporate parent Deutsche Telekom - but as of 2004 their name changed to the current T-Mobile Team. It contains a total of 29 riders, 9 physiotherapists or nurses, 9 mechanics and service persons, and has 22 partners. The team is under the management of Olaf Ludwig and Eddy Vandenhecke; it has the spokesperson Luuc Eisenga; and is under the sports directors Mario Kummer, Frans van Looy, Brian Holm, and Giovanni Fidanza.

1 History
2 2007 ProTeam
3 Film: Hell on Wheels
4 Footnotes
5 External links

Founded as Team Telekom in 1991 with Walter Godefroot the team manager, the team soon became an important presence on the international cycling stage. In 1994, the German sprinter Erik Zabel won the first UCI Road World Cup victory in the history of the team, the Paris-Tours. A year later, in 1995, Zabel won two stages in the 1995 Tour de France.

1997 Tour: Jan Ullrich in the leader's jersey, with Udo Bölts riding in support.

The next two years saw the international breakthrough of the team. Godefroot brought in Danish rider Bjarne Riis, the third place finisher of the 1995 Tour, and he went on to win the 1996 Tour de France, with the then 22-year old German support rider Jan Ullrich finishing in second place. The 1997 Tour de France saw the emergence of Ullrich as he won the race with support from Riis, who in turn had won the World Cup race Amstel Gold Race earlier in 1997. Team Telekom also won the team classification, as the overall strongest team of the 1997 Tour.

In both 1997 and 1998, Zabel won the Milan-Sanremo, while Ullrich finished second in the 1998 Tour de France. Ullrich went on to win the 1999 Vuelta a España, although he missed the 1999 Tour de France due to a knee injury. The next year, Zabel won the overall World Cup victory, having won the Milan-Sanremo and Amstel Gold Race, while Ullrich placed second again in the 2000 Tour de France to Lance Armstrong. In 2001, Zabel won Milan-Sanremo for the fourth time. Ullrich came in second in the 2001 Tour de France, while Zabel won six stages combined in the 2001 Tour and Vuelta. Kazakh rider Alexandre Vinokourov won the Paris-Nice stage race in 2002, a feat he would duplicate in 2003, also winning the Amstel Gold Race and Tour de Suisse that year. As Ullrich left the team to form Team Bianchi in 2003, Vinokourov became team leader for the 2003 Tour de France. He finished in third place, just below the second placed Ullrich. Zabel won the 2003 Paris-Tours, while Italian rider Daniele Nardello took the Züri-Metzgete.

From 2004, the team changed its name to T-Mobile. Jan Ullrich returned to the team, and raced the 2004 Tour de France as team leader, while Vinokourov did not ride the Tour de France for the team. Jan Ullrich finished fourth, while Andreas Klöden was the best placed rider of the team in second place. T-Mobile Team won the team classification, as the overall strongest team of the 2004 Tour. In the spring season of 2005, Vinokourov won the Liège-Bastogne-Liège classic race. Ullrich, as the team leader, finished 3rd overall in the 2005 Tour de France. Alexandre Vinokourov rode in support, and finished fifth as he won two stages, including the final stage on the Champs-Elysees. Italian rider Giuseppe Guerini also won a stage and T-Mobile Team matched their 2004 feat by once again winning the team classification in 2005.

In July 2005, during the 2005 Tour, Vinokourov's contract was running out and speculation was abundant if he was to stay with T-Mobile. With four days left of the 2005 Tour, he made an announcement that he would leave the team to pursue his own chances of winning the Tour de France as a team captain^[1] and after the Tour he joined the Liberty Seguros team.^[2] After 13 years with Team Telekom and T-Mobile Team, Erik Zabel also left in 2005 to ride for the newly formed Team Milram.^[3] Before the 2006 season, Walter Godefroot stepped down and Olaf Ludwig became the new T-Mobile team manager.

In the most controversial scandal since the 1998 tour, thirteen riders were expelled from the 2006 Tour de France stemming from a Spanish doping scandal, on the eve of Strasbourg prologue to the 93rd edition. Jan Ullrich, one of the favourites to win the race, was among those excluded from the Tour. Another T-Mobile rider, Oscar Sevilla, was also expelled, leaving the team starting with only seven riders.

On 9 July, the team announced the sacking its sporting director Rudy Pevenage for his implication with former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich in a Spanish blood-doping scandal. "The contract linking T-Mobile to Pevenage has been retrospectively stopped on 30 June," the team's general manager, Olaf Ludwig, said.^[4]

On July 21, 2006, T-Mobile fired Jan Ullrich from the team pending the doping investigation.^[5]

At the 2006 Tour de France, T-Mobile won the team classification for the third consecutive year, Andreas Klöden reached the podium (3rd place) for the second time, Matthias Kessler won Stage 3, Serhiy Honchar won two individual time trials (Stages 7 and 19) and wore the yellow jersey for 3 days (after Stages 7-9).

As of January 4, 2007.^[6]

	Rider	Date of Birth
	Michael Barry	December 18, 1975 (age 31)
	Eric Baumann	March 21, 1980 (age 27)
	Lorenzo Bernucci	September 15, 1979 (age 27)
	Marcus Burghardt	June 30, 1983 (age 23)
	Mark Cavendish	May 21, 1986 (age 20)
	Gerald Ciolek	September 19, 1986 (age 20)
	Scott Davis	April 22, 1979 (age 27)
	Bernhard Eisel	February 17, 1981 (age 26)
	Linus Gerdemann	September 16, 1982 (age 24)
	Bert Grabsch	June 19, 1975 (age 31)
	André Greipel	July 16, 1982 (age 24)
	Giuseppe Guerini	February 14, 1970 (age 37)
	Roger Hammond	January 30, 1974 (age 33)
	Adam Hansen	May 11, 1981 (age 25)
	Greg Henderson	September 10, 1976 (age 30)

	Rider	Date of Birth
	Serhiy Honchar	July 3, 1970 (age 36)
	Kim Kirchen	July 3, 1978 (age 28)
	Andreas Klier	January 15, 1976 (age 31)
	Servais Knaven	March 6, 1971 (age 36)
	André Korff	June 4, 1973 (age 33)
	Axel Merckx	August 8, 1972 (age 34)
	Aaron Olsen	January 11, 1978 (age 29)
	Jakob Piil	March 9, 1973 (age 34)
	Marco Pinotti	February 25, 1976 (age 31)
	František Raboň	September 26, 1983 (age 23)
	Michael Rogers	December 20, 1979 (age 27)
	Stephan Schreck	July 15, 1978 (age 28)
	Patrik Sinkewitz	October 20, 1980 (age 26)
	Thomas Ziegler	November 24, 1980 (age 26)

Main article: Hell on Wheels (2004 film)

In 2005 a film titled Hell on Wheels was released. It is a record of the 100th anniversary (but only the 90th running because of World War I and World War II) of the Tour de France in 2003 from the perspective of the then-Team Telekom.^[7]