Andreas Klöden and Maxime Monfort may be without a contract for next season. Trek takes over the Radioshack license from next year and is set to build the team more around Fabian Cancellara and the classics, leaving the two stage race specialists without a spot on the roster for next season.
Andreas Klöden and Maxime Monfort may have been some of the cornerstones of the stage race-focused Radioshack team in recent years but their time on the team may now have come to an end. A report in the Gazet van Antwerpen suggests that they have been dropped by the team management for next season.
Trek will take over the team license and while the team has chosen to resign the Schleck brothers, it is set to change strategy and put more emphasis on the classics and Fabian Cancellara who won both the Tour of Flanders and the Paris-Roubaix this year. That leaves the two stage race specialists with no spot on the roster.
Monfort was the team's best finisher at the Tour de France where he ended up 14th. He has mostly worked as a domestique but has had his chances in one-week stage races and finished in the top 10 in the 2011 Vuelta. He is rumoured to be in negotiations with the Lotto-Belisol team which hopes to strengthen the depth of its roster and support crew for Jurgen Van Den Broeck in the grand tours.
Andreas Klöden has twice finished 2nd in the Tour de France and was 11th in the race last year. In 2011, he won the Vuelta al Pais Vasco and finished 2nd in the Paris-Nice but his two most recent seasons have not been successful for the 38-year old. According to Gazet van Antwerpen, he may join the Swiss IAM team for next season which would be a good fit for the German who has lived in the Alpine country for many years.
Other rumours are that double Belgian time trial champion Kristof Vandewalle (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) will join Trek as one of the reinforcements for the classics while former Dutch champion Pim Ligthart is targeted by Lotto-Belisol as his current Vacansoleil team may be folding at the end of the season.
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