Omega Pharma - Quick Step has officially announced the selection that will participate in the World Championship Team Time Trial race being held next Sunday in Italy.
"The team will be perfectly captained by Tony Martin, current World Champion in this specialty, and we will also be able to count on the same structure that made up the winning team in the 2012 World Championships: Sylvain Chavanel, Niki Terpstra, Peter Velits and Kristof Vandewalle," Sport Director Tom Steels said. "Michal Kwiatkowski is the team's new entry. The two backup riders will be Julien Vermote and Zdenek Stybar."
"With the exception of Tony Martin, the team will participate in Wednesday's GP de Wallonie, which will be an important event that will help them recover quicker from their jet lag after their return from Canada," Steels continued. "It will also be a good chance to put in a final intensive effort before flying off to Florence. Fortunately, Kwiatkowski only has a few scrapes to his right side and right elbow as consequence of yesterday's crash and Vandewalle has resolved some small problems after the crash in the Vuelta. On Thursday the squad will meet up in Montecatini and starting that afternoon they will be doing a workout on the route. It will be important to memorize the route and the curves immediately. Until now the preparation has been going well. We carried out some tests in Zolder a few weeks ago and we collected some important information by doing a recon with our technical staff. Of course, the road will ultimately decide the race, but our goal will definitely be to defend the title we captured last year using all of our forces."