Team Stölting Service Group has today been launched in Düsseldorf, Germany, and is ready to embark on the 2016 season, its first as a Pro Continental team.

Following three successful years racing at Continental level, achieving strong results and inspiring fans and riders along the journey, Team Stölting Service Group has made the next step in international cycling. What's more, the team will be racing under a German licence as it expresses a drive to work on the growth of professional cycling in Germany once again.
 
“We have formed a strong team from a group of young, talented riders, together with a mixture of experienced talent to help the team develop and grow on the road,” explained team CEO Christian Große Kreul. “We have a really international racing calendar ahead of us now, with races already in Qatar and Oman. This is a great platform to grow our sporting plan but also to create awareness for our team and our sponsors. As a team we also want to reach out to the public and bring professional cycling in Germany forward, and we do this by connecting the ever growing amateur sport with professional cycling through our Amateur Team, and by creating an interest in professional cycling through our team. We are looking forward to showing passion for professional cycling once again and working on the future of our sport in Germany and consequently around the world.”
 
The team was presented to the press together with partners of the team at Düsseldorf today, iconically chosen as the Team Launch location with its significance as the Grand Départ of the 2017 Tour de France. 

Hans Mosbacher CEO Stölting Service Group added: “I am proud to see the team here in Düsseldorf, presenting its riders and goals for what's set to be an exciting season. We as Stölting are very glad to see the interest in cycling growing and on top of that the Tour de France arriving in our region in 2017, which creates a lot of interest in our team and our company. It is great to see how the team has grown from scratch in 2013 to the level it's at now. We want to continue growing even further together and we're looking forward to welcoming other partners on board to make these next steps with us and to create an interesting platform.”

The riders and staff were recently fine tuning preparations for the start of the season on training camp in Mallorca before a team headed out to race the Tour of Qatar and the Tour of Oman. The next goals for the team lie in the European spring race calendar, starting at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on February 27.

“As a team we want to show ourselves in the international peloton at the opportunities it presents, with races like Omloop Het Nieuwsblad,Flèche Wallonne, Critérium International and the German races,” said Sports Director Jochen Hahn when talking about the team's sporting plan. “With Ciolek, Gerdemann, Wegmann and Guldhammer we have riders in the team who have proven that they can play a role in such races. But in addition we have a wealth of talent in our team that we can give space for development in our program and give them the opportunity to learn from the more experienced riders and become stronger through our race program. We will of course be aiming for some strong results, but we also focus on growing with the team at all levels.”  

The 2016 team consists of 17 riders: Michael Carbel (Denmark), Gerald Ciolek (Germany), Linus Gerdemann (Germany), Rasmus Guldhammer (Denmark), Lasse Norman Hansen (Denmark), Alexander Kamp (Denmark), Lennard Kämna (Germany), Alex Kirsch (Luxembourg), Thomas Koep (Germany), Romain Lemarchand (France), Christian Mager (Germany), Mads Pedersen (Denmark), Rasmus Quaade (Denmark), Michael Reihs (Denmark), Sven Reutter (Germany), Jonas Tenbrock (Germany) and Fabian Wegmann (Germany).