HTC-Highroad (UCI team code:THR) is a professional cycling team competing in international road bicycle races. Their current title sponsor is HTC Corporation, a Taiwanese maker of Smartphones. High Road Sports is the management company of team manager Bob Stapleton. Past title sponsors include Columbia Sportswear and Deutsche Telekom.
The team was set up in 1991 as Team Telekom, sponsored by Deutsche Telekom. In 2004 their name changed to the T-Mobile-Team. It has 29 riders, 9 physiotherapists or nurses, 9 mechanics and service persons, and has 22 partners. The team is managed by Bob Stapleton and Rolf Aldag. Former leaders include Olaf Ludwig, Walter Godefroot and Eddy Vandenhecke (managers), Luuc Eisenga (spokesperson) and Brian Holm, Valerio Piva (sports directors).
History
Team beginnings: 1988 – 1991
At the end of 1988, former World Champion Hennie Kuiper set up a German cycling team that was sponsored by the city of Stuttgart and rode on Eddy Merckx cycles. The team was called Stuttgart-Merckx-Gonsor for the 1989 season and had nine riders (which included Udo Bölts). At that time when there were no German cycling teams and the country's main cycling event, the Rund um den Henninger Turm had not been won by a German since Rudi Altig in 1970. During its first year of existence team rider Dariusc Kajzer brought the team its first success in the National Road Race Championships in Germany. The team became Stuttgart-Mercedes-Merckx-Puma in 1990 and Bölts continued the success of the team by becoming road race champion of Germany.
Team Telekom: 1991 – 2004
Deutsche Telekom came in as the main sponsor in 1991 and the team was known as Telekom-Mercedes-Merckx-Puma. According to an interview with Godefroot, it was Bölts’ 17th place at the 1991 Vuelta a España that prompted him to accept the Telekom management’s offer to take over the running of the team. Godefroot signed several riders including Classics specialist and 1991 Paris–Roubaix winner Marc Madiot. Bölts who was involved with the team since its beginnings in 1989 stayed with the team until 2003, continued building on the successes of the team by winning stage 19, the Queen stage of the 1992 Giro d'Italia. Jens Heppner continued this with his tenth place overall at the 1992 Tour de France.
The Telekom team signed all the promising cyclists that were coming from Germany at that time and who were becoming successful. These included Jens Heppner and Christian Henn in 1992, Erik Zabel, Rolf Aldag and Steffen Wesemann in 1993 and Jan Ullrich in 1994. Many of these riders would ride for more than ten years with the team. Olaf Ludwig also signed in 1993 and finished his career with the team. In 1994, Zabel won the first UCI Road World Cup victory in the history of the team, the Paris–Tours.
In 1993 the team again achieved success in the national championship road race in Germany. This was the start of the team’s 11 year domination and possession of the German champion’s jersey. Many of the successful team riders that spent many years of their career with Telekom would become German national champions – Bernd Gröne in 1993, Jens Heppner in 1994, Bölts in 1990, 1995 and 1999, Christian Henn in 1996, Jan Ullrich in 1997 and 2001, Erik Zabel in 1998 and 2003, Rolf Aldag in 2000, Danilo Hondo in 2002 and finally Andreas Klöden in 2004.
The team soon became an important presence on the international cycling stage. However the team was not invited to the 1995 Tour de France. Eventually the organisers of the Tour agreed that six Telekom members, namely Rolf Aldag, Udo Bölts, Jens Heppner, Vladimir Pulnikov, Erik Zabel and Olaf Ludwig, would be joined with three members of the ZG Mobili to form a composite team. Zabel went on to win two stages in the race.
The next two years saw the international breakthrough of the team. Godefroot brought in Danish rider Bjarne Riis, the third place finisher of the 1995 Tour and he went on to win the 1996 Tour de France, with the then 22-year old German support rider Jan Ullrich finishing in second place. In addition, Zabel won the first of six green jerseys for winning the points competition. Bolts won the Clásica de San Sebastián and Wesemann won his second and the first of four wins with the Telekom team of the famous stage race the Peace Race.