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 The Englishman Mark Cavendish, has been quite impressive winning the 2nd, 3rd, 10th, 11th, 19th and 21st stage of Tour de France and the classic race Milano – San Remo. Cavendish was the world’s most winning rider with 25 victories, and he is number one according to the world ranking of Eurosport just as they state Team Columbia to be the best bike team in the world.
The Team Columbia-HTC male riders achieved a total of 86 victories whereas the female riders reached 46 victories. A total of 132 victories split out on 21 riders.
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Nationalities: Team Columbia-HTC consists of 18 different nationalities of riders, and the team includes 9 national champions from Australia, Germany, England, Denmark, Czech Republic, Luxembourg, Italy, Sweden and Norway. The team also presents 6 former world champions.
Main office: United States.
Owner: Bob Stableton.
Sports Directors: Rolf Aldag, Brian Holm, Tristan Hoffmann, Jan Schauffrath, Alan Peiper and Valerio Piva.
Advisor: Eric Zabel.
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 The Tourist Board is furthermore hosting the entire Team Columbia-HTC at a Spanish gala dinner.
Club La Santa is proud to welcome the world’s best bike team, Team Columbia-HTC, to the largest sports center in the world and the volcanic mountains of Lanzarote. A total of 28 professional bikers and 37 employees including sports directors, masseurs, mechanics and doctors, will stay there at a training camp for 10 days.
Team Columbia-HTC is a large and mixed group of bikers from 18 different countries, which sums a total of 132 victories in the 2009-season, and in the mild climate and the tough volcanic mountains of Lanzarote they find the best possible conditions to prepare for the great challenges to come. |
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 Mark Cavendish, the super sprinter, who won 6 stages of this year’s Tour de France, has a clear idea of the purpose of the stay in the “cruel” nature:
“I want to win the green jersey (sprinter trophy) in next years Tour de France and the world championship of the road race”. This is my purpose, states the 24-year-old biker from the Isle of Man.
Probably the reason why Cavendish did not reach the podium of this years’ Tour de France, was that the jury sentenced him to the last position in the 14th stage after a close race with the Norwegian Thor Hushovd.
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 Mark did not push any more than Thor did, and I still think that “the green jersey was taken away from Mark for no reason”, says Sports Director Rolf Aldag, who is happy to be back at Club La Santa, where the 41-year-old German has been a regular visitor almost since he was a child.
Yes, I was also here more than 10 years ago as a team member with Bjarne Riis and Jan Ulrich in Team Telekom, because Club La Santa and Lanzarote is the ideal place to get in shape for bicycling. Back then the focus was placed on two riders, whereas today Team Columbia-HTC consists of many riders capable of winning big races, states Rolf Aldag.
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He has the following comment to the last years many doping cases in professional bicycling:
Nobody can prevent a rider from cheating, but we corporate with an American medical firm, who is doing the internal doping tests of Team Columbia-HTC’s riders, and the results can arrive tonight or next week. We cannot do anymore.
Team Columbia-HTC is like the Foreign Legion, but the language spoken between the riders, from so many different nations, is English, also in private, states Aldag, who is leading the team together with the Danish legendary rider, Brian Holm, who has been one of the Sports Directors during the past 5 years.
Apart from Mark Cavendish, Team Columbia-HTC elite team consists of Adam Hansen, USA, Andre Greipel, Germany, Marco Pinotti, Italy, Rabon Frantisek, Czech Republic, Michael Rodgers, Australia, Kanstansin Sivtsov, Belgica, and the Danes Rasmus Guldhammer and Lars Bak. Last mentioned was part of the Danish team, Saxobank, last season.
Club La Santa is a fantastic place for a training camp; the best in the world when it comes to preparing in the best possible way for the worlds most challenging race, states the Team Columbia-HTC sports director Brian Holm, who participated as an active rider in Tour de France in 6 occasions.
Rolf Aldag adds:
We are looking forward to the challenging mountains in this nice weather while it is snowing in Northern Europe. Afterwards, we can relax in the Club La Santa wellness centre, having a massage and enjoying the spa and sauna, says Rolf Aldag, who also has a wide experience with Tour de France and who once, next to the Australian Danny “The entertainer” Clark, was one the worlds best six days riders.
Aldag and Holm can also offer their riders coffee and mental inspiration in the Club La Santa Sports Café, Hall of Fame, where the five times Tour de France champion, the legendary Miguel Indurain, who stayed at a trainings camp at Club La Santa in 1989, among others looks at them from the wall…….
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