Milram Trouble Already...

The newly formed Italo-German professional cycling team, Milram, headed by top sprinters Erik Zabel and Alessandro Petacchi, could already be feeling the pains of attempting to meet needs of both.

As reported yesterday in CyclingNews.com.

After the route for the 2006 Giro was announced, Petacchi declared the race "too hard" for sprinters and indicated that he might instead ride the Tour de France. This announcement was heard uneasily within the team, which had assumed that Petacchi would ride the Giro and his teammate Erik Zabel would ride the Tour.

One of the main reasons Zabel, six-time winner of the sprinters' green jersey at the TdF, left T-Mobile was their lack of support for him in the 2005 TdF. So, for Petacchi to announce he might not ride the Giro in favor of the Tour probably didn't sit well with Zabel.

We'll have to see what happens as Petacchi hasn't ruled out the Giro, yet.