The only German professional cycling team, BORA – Argon 18, is heading into the new season with confidence. At today’s briefing with representatives from the German media at the team’s home base, team manager Ralph Denk formulated the objectives for the coming year. In the presence of Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France who was visiting BORA – Argon 18 in its Bavarian home, the team stated that its top priority for the season is to return to the world’s most important cycling race.

“We want to be back at the Tour de France next year. We are trying very hard to get a wild card and are quite candid about our goal. It is thus a great honor to have Christian Prudhomme visiting our team in Bavaria today. The mere fact that he has made the effort underscores the Tour’s interest in Germany. And our team makes a small contribution to this,” Ralph Denk, team manager of BORA – Argon 18, said.

“We are the only ProConti team that was allowed to ride all three Grand Tours over the past three years. We reached the podium in all of these tours, surprised a lot of people with our performance and proved that we deserved to be invited. Now with Dominik Nerz we have signed one of Germany’s best tour riders to our team. He has the potential to develop into a top 10 rider in the overall rankings,” Denk continued.

Under its current name of Team NetApp-Endura, the team participated in the Tour de France for the first time this year. The German team debuted with nine newcomers to the Tour who gave convincing performances with two third place finishes, including one by Jan Barta in the time trial. Barta also won the red starting number awarded to the most active rider in the third stage. Leopold König’s seventh place finish in the general classification should be considered the team’s greatest success at its premiere in the Tour de France.