HTC-Highroad to fold at end of season
The most successful team over the last five years to close its doors
HTC-Highroad, the high-powered team of Mark Cavendish, always a threat in stage races and one day Classics, will disband at the end of this racing season. Owner Bob Stapleton announced that his team cannot find a satisfactory new sponsor and encouraged both riders and staff to search for new squads. Despite Stapleton’s desperate negotiations over the past few months, the team, present in the pro peloton in different forms since 2007 will dissolve.
The Velits twins, Martin and Peter, had already moved on to QuickStep-Omega Pharma at the beginning of this month. The day before Stapleton’s announcement, Mark Cavendish revealed that he’d chosen a team for next season, but wouldn’t say which one, though it’s widely spectulated to be Sky or the new Australian outfit GreenEDGE.
Consistently ranked as the number one team in cycling, HTC has racked up 47 wins for the men’s team (including Tony Martin’s victories in the Volta ao Algarve and Paris-Nice and Matthew Goss’s Milan-San Remo title) and 46 for the women’s squad this season. Stapleton holds out hope for keeping the women’s side afloat.
