Cycling: Dean heads strong world champs team

Seven-time Tour de France cyclist Julian Dean will spearhead a small but strong New Zealand team in this month's UCI road cycling world championships in Denmark.

Dean (Garmin Cervelo) will be joined by fellow Pro Tour rider Greg Henderson (Team Sky) and Jack Bauer (Endura Racing) to form the three-strong men's team for the world championships in Copenhagen on September 21-25.

Radioshack's Jesse Sergent and Bauer will compete in the time trial, while Linda Villumsen (AA Drink-Leontien.nl) is the sole woman, competing in both the road race and time trial.

Director sportif Andy Reid said selection for the three spots has been one of the toughest in recent times.

"We now have a number of riders in Pro Tour teams and other racing to a high level both in Europe and USA,'' Reid said. "The course was also a key factor in our selections, with the race likely to favour the sprinters.

"Julian and Greg are world-class sprinters who have had excellent success this year. We needed a strong rider on flat circuits to ride for them, have the potential to ride down breaks and do the donkey-work. Jack Bauer has proved he is extraordinarily strong and all three have been in top form this year.''

Henderson has had two wins this year - on stage two of the Paris-Nice and stage three of the Tour of California, Dean was part of the Garmin team that won the team time trial and finished top team at the Tour de France and Bauer won stage two of the Tour of Utah.

Sergent has won three individual time trials this year in the prologue at the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen, the Eneco Tour and Tour du Poitiou Charentes, where he won overall honours, and Villumsen won the bronze medal in the time trial in 2009 and 2010 as well as the silver medal at the Commonwealth Games.

The BikeNZ team is:

Elite Female: Linda Villumsen (AA Drink-Leontien.nl, Auckland).

Elite Male: Jack Bauer (Endura Racing, Nelson), Julian Dean (Garmin Cervelo, Rotorua), Greg Henderson (Team Sky, Melbourne), Jesse Sergent (Radioshack, Feilding).

U23 Male: George Bennett (Trek Livestrong, Nelson), Jason Christie (Ashburton)

Tom David (UCS Crabbe Performance, Auckland), James Williamson (Pure Black Racing, Alexandra).

U19 Female: Georgia Williams (Auckland), Sophie Williamson (Alexandra).

U19 Male Alex Frame (Christchurch), Fraser Gough (Havelock North), James Oram (Pure Black Racing, Auckland), Hayden McCormick (Te Awamutu), Dion Smith (Pure Black Racing, Auckland).