Columbia-Highroad Women’s team started their European racing season this weekend, in a series of three one-day events in north-west Italy. Linda Villumsen won the final race in an epic mountain top finish. Columbia-Highroad’s Chantal Beltman talks about starting a new season.

“Racing in Europe in the early spring always has a really high  level of intensity and aggression,” comments Beltman. “Everybody’s fresh and keen to get going, they all want to test their form and get back into the action.”

After winning more than 50 percent of the races they took part in last year, Columbia-Highroad  have become automatic favourites in almost every event they start. But Beltman is confident her squad can handle being the team to beat.

“I really don’t see this as being much higher pressure than in the past. The level of women’s racing is much better than it used to be, so I’m pretty sure we’ll be facing more competitive rivals in any case. As a team, though, we’ve grown and consolidated hugely in the last couple of years, so I think we’ll be able to deal with the pressure.”

For Beltman, Columbia-Highroad’s 2009 goals are “not so much to do well overall in the World Cup and race defensively as a result, that’s never been our objective. Rather we’ll take things on a race-by-race basis, and see what we can achieve.”

“As for my personal objectives, I will be looking at doing well in the Spring Classics like Flanders, Drenthe - which I won last year - and then helping out in the stage races later on in the year.”

“Judith Arndt’s broken collarbone means she won’t be racing for another four or five weeks. But we have other riders like Chantal, Luise Keller or Linda Villumsen who will be looking for great results themselves,” adds sports director Ronny Lauke.

“Our first big target will be the Alfredo Binda World Cup race next weekend [March 29th]. “It’s true that expectations are much higher than they have been before, because last year was so successful. But at the same time, the team is getting stronger and stronger internally with each season, so we won’t have any problems keeping Columbia-Highroad in the thick of the racing action.”