Team Milram has signed former Gerolsteiner riders Robert Förster and Ronny Scholz for 2009. The team from Dortmund, Germany has brought on a total of eight Gerolsteiner’s riders.
“We have signed two experienced riders in Ronny Scholz and Robert Förster, who will strengthen our team”, said Gerry van Gerwen, General Manager of Team Milram. “Ronny Scholz is very experienced and a good helper. Robert Förster will surely bring us a few wins.”
The 30- year-old Förster has won stages in the Giro d’Italia, Vuelta a Espana and the Deutschland Tour and will strengthen the teams position for field sprints. “I am looking forward to the new season”, said Förster, who is currently on vacation. “It was enormously important to me, to ride in another German team.”
Ronny Scholz is a proven domestique in the big races, having participated in the Tour de France from 2004 to 2008, and the Giro d’Italia in 2003 and 2006. Despite his status as a domestique, Scholz has the ability to turn opportunity into wins. “I am very much looking forward to the new team and the new challenges”, commented Scholz. “As a German rider, it is of course something special to ride on a German team. I rode for Team Gerolsteiner for eight years and can’t wait to see how I make the change from water to milk!”
Other key signings for this year at Team Milram include Tour Captain Christian Knees, Markus Eichler and Dutch rider Niki Terpstra have all extended their contracts through 2010. The 27-year-old Björn Schröder signed a one-year contract at the Vattenfall Cyclassics for the coming season. The Dortmund team has hired ten other new riders for the next two years: Germans Paul Voss (Team 3C-Gruppe), Johannes Fröhlinger, Matthias Russ, Thomas and Markus Fothen and Fabian Wegmann from Team Gerolsteiner, the two Dutch riders Wim Stroetinga (Ubbink-Syntec) and Servais Knaven (Team Columbia), as well as the two Austrians, Thomas Rohregger (Elk Haus-Simplon) and Peter Wrolich (Gerolsteiner).