The recently published Vuelta a Espana 2010 route offers plenty of chances for Columbia-HTC's riders to be as successful as they were in the 2009 race, says sports director Allan Peiper.  Columbia-HTC won five stages in the 2009 Vuelta, and the team's sprinter André Greipel took the points competition overall.

Columbia-HTC was one of just three teams to secure stage victories in all three major Tours last season.  "The Tour of Spain 2010 route is very demanding and the racing will be fast-moving and exciting all the way through, which is how we like it," Peiper pointed out.  "In the past we've always done well in those kinds of races.  In next year's Vuelta, the mountain stages aren't really concentrated in one or two big blocks like in the Tour de France. So with so much different terrain on offer, we can expect opportunities to come up constantly. Overall, the route favors the real climbers, because the opening 16-kilometre team time trial will be won and lost by seconds, not minutes, and there's only one individual time trial afterwards.  However, you start to suffer on one of those big climbs in the Pyrenees and you can lose a minute a kilometre.  The route is deliberately designed so you can lose or win the Vuelta right up to the second to last day, as has happened in the past.  It's going to be a real challenge.

"For Columbia-HTC, this is going to be an interesting race, one in which our GC contenders and some of our other riders will have a real chance to shine."