The Discovery Channel and Gerolsteiner pro cycling teams named their Tour de France squads Friday, and Americans lead the lists for both.
George Hincapie, left, is leading the Discovery team and Levi Leipheimer, right, heads the Gerolsteiner squad. Both have competed in numerous Tours de France.
Other members of Discovery's team (listed at Paceline website, free membership) include Yaroslav Popovych, Paolo Savoldelli, Jose Azevedo, Egoi Martinez, Pavel Padrnos, Viatcheslav Ekimov, Benjamin Noval, and Jose Luis Rubiera. Additionally, Vladimir Gusev and Michael Barry have been listed as reserves.
Hincapie raced alongside Armstrong in all seven of his Tour de France victories, and won a Tour stage last year. He started the season strong with a couple of stage wins at the Tour of California and several top 10 finishes in one-day classics. But Hincapie suffered a shoulder injury in the Paris-Roubaix that sidelined him for several weeks.
Among the other Discovery cyclists, Popovych was named the Tour de France's top young cyclist last year; Savoldelli won a Tour stage himself; and Ekimov has competed in 14 Tours de France.
The German Gerolsteiner team not surprisingly chose Leipheimer to lead its cyclists in the Tour de France. The Santa Rosa, California, cyclist comes fresh off a win at the Dauphiné Libéré. He finished 6th in the Tour de France last year (his sixth Tour), and won the Tour of Germany later in the fall.
Leipheimer teammate Georg Totschnig also will be allowed a shot at the podium, according to VeloNews. Totschnig finished 7th in the 2004 Tour and won a stage last year. Other riders for Gerolsteiner are Markus Fothen, David Kopp, Sebastian Lang, Ronny Scholz, Fabian Wegmann, Peter Wrolich, and Beat Zberg.
See also: Basso's CSC team names 3 Americans for Tour de France; 5 on other teams
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