Continental high-tech tyres – Primed for success

Hanover, 9 July 2007. This year’s ProTour for professional riders, which was first launched two years ago, has an international calendar of 27 races, including three tours of three weeks’ duration each. But no matter how difficult and gruelling the individual races, there is always one that eclipses the rest – the Tour de France, the world’s largest open-air sporting event. The 94^th Tour de France will this year have its ‘grand start’ on Saturday 07 July from the centre of London. Top athletes from the four teams using Continental tyres – Caisse d’Épargne, Crédit Agricole, Astana and T-Mobile – will approach the starting line with high expectations and excellent prospects of a top ranking. On 29 July, the final stretch of the tour will, as per tradition, pass through the Champs d’Elysées in Paris, and there is a good chance that a top podium place will go to one of the riders to have spent the three weeks relying on world-class tyres from Continental.

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The race looks set to get off to an impressive start. On the Friday, the teams will be presented in Trafalgar Square, followed by the Prologue on Saturday, which will pass in front of Buckingham Palace and through Hyde Park, with Stage 1 starting on the Sunday from the Mall. Like every year, 189 riders will start the over 3,000 kilometre race, including the Kazakh Alexander Vinokourov (Astana), and the two Spaniards Alejandro Valverde and Oscar Pereiro, last year’s runner-up, (both riding for Caisse d’Épargne). These two riders are favourites to win the Tour de France 2007 and will both be using Continental tyres. The 27-year-old Spaniard, Valverde, currently said to be the world’s highest paid cycling professional, with estimated earnings of three million euros per year, has already more than proven his worth in the ProTour races so far this year. After taking first place in the ProTour last year, Valverde’s prospects again look promising; he currently takes third place in the ProTour’s individual ranking behind Danilo di Luca and Davide Rebellin from Italy. Also in the top ten, and using Continental tyres, are Valverde’s Russian team-mate Vladimir Karpets (5^th) and Kim Kirchen from Luxembourg who rides for T-Mobile (8^th).

For this year’s Tour de France, Valverde in particular has set his sights high; he was favourite to win the race last year but was forced to pull out at the end of stage 3 after breaking his collarbone. Valverde’s main competition this year comes from Vinokourov and Astana rider Andreas Klöden from Germany, who was runner-up in 2004. There may therefore be an exciting fight for the top spot between three Continental professionals, of whom Klöden and Vinokourov, as members of the
T-Mobile team, have already used Continental tyres to good effect in the past.

Over the next three weeks, riders will have to complete twelve flat stages, one medium mountain stage, six demanding mountain stages and two individual time-trial stages. 21 Category 1, Category 2 and highest level mountain passes will be climbed, but it won’t only be here where the four Continental teams leave their mark. Norwegian Thor Hushovd, for example, from the Crédit Agricole team, is not only considered one of the world’s best at racing for the finish line, he is also likely to take the green jersey as best sprinter for this Tour. German hopes Patrik Sinkewitz and Linus Gerdemann (T-Mobile) have good chances of breaking away from the peloton and, in the time trials, Continental riders Valverde and Vinokourov are sure to be amongst the leaders.

Whatever happens, one thing is certain: the 36 professional riders from the four teams using Continental high-tech tyres will be fully equipped to cope with any eventuality. All of which means there is nothing to stand in the way of an exhilarating and successful 2007 Tour de France for the German tyre experts.

The Continental Corporation is a leading automotive supplier of tyres, brake systems, chassis components, vehicle electronics and technical elastomers. In 2006 the corporation realised sales of EUR 14.9 billion. At present it has a worldwide workforce of around 87,000.

Continental’s tyre divisions are official sponsor of UEFA Euro 2008™, which is being co-hosted by Austria and Switzerland in June 2008. Further information on this is available at www.ContiSoccerWorld.de, www.contifanworld.com and www.conti-online.com.