San Luis Obispo, CA – 4th June 2010 -Following a highly successful first half of the 2010 season, HTC-Columbia’s rookie professional Tejay Van Garderen will be testing his aptitude for major three-week Tours at the Dauphiné Libére stage race, which starts this Sunday in Evians-les-Bains in France.

“Tejay has done really well for a first year pro so far,” says HTC-Columbia’s sports director Allan Peiper. “He took second overall in the Tour of Turkey and he was instrumental in Mick Rogers victory in the Tour of California, too. The Dauphiné is going to be the highlight of his first half of the season.

“It’s like a mini-Tour de France, with three really tough mountain stages, an ascent of Alpe d’Huez, a 50 kilometre time trial, so we’ll be able to find out a lot more about how he performs in that sort of racing environment.”

However, Peiper says that Van Garderen will not be expected to produce a particular result, rather the young American will be taking the arduous eight-day French race on the day-by-day.

“I wouldn’t call him our protected rider, we have got some very experienced three-week stage racers here as well. Konstantsin (Sivtsov) is on his way back up after the crash where he broke his collarbone and his wrist. And of course Bert [Grabsch] won the time trial stage here last year and will be targeting that stage again. At just over 50 kilometres, it’s very much his kind of distance.”

HTC-Columbia for Dauphiné Libéré: Lars Bak (Den); Gert Dockx (Bel); Bert Grabsch (Ger); Patrick Gretsch (Ger), Aleksej Saramotins (Lat), Konstantsin Sivtsov (Byl); Peter Velits (Svk); Tejay Van Garderen (USA).