Tour of Denmark victor Simon Gerrans and Tour de France time trial winner Tony Martin have been reported as being linked to the new GreenEdge team, with a prominent Australian newspaper claiming that one or both could be part of the lineup for 2012.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald’s Rupert Guinness, Gerrans looks set to transfer from his current Sky Procycling setup to the new squad, which is aiming to get a UCI ProTeam licence in its first year. It needs big name riders to do that, and Gerrans could bring some important firepower plus experience to the squad.
In the past 24 hours the team confirmed that another former Tour de France stage winner Stuart O’Grady has signed up to GreenEdge, and will have a road captain role guiding young riders such as Jack Bobridge, Cameron Meyer and his brother Travis. All three are currently part of the Garmin-Cervélo team, but have opted to move to the new setup for next season. The Eritrean rider Daniel Teklehaimanot has also been confirmed.
The Herald cites unnamed sources as telling it that 20 other riders have been confirmed but not yet announced. Gerrans is thought to be one of those; the newspaper also suggests that Martin could be on his way there.
He is currently part of the HTC Highroad team, but this will stop at the end of the year due to an inability to find sufficient backing for 2012 to guarantee that it can take on the top teams.
Martin is regarded by some as a possible Grand Tour contender, even if he hasn’t yet shown the consistency in the three week tours. He won Paris-Nice and the Volta ao Algarve this season, and beat world champion Fabian Cancellara and others to take the final time trial in the Tour de France.
More details of the new team’s lineup are expected to be confirmed in the near future.