Arnstadt's Marcel Kittel will not start at Milan-San Remo this year. His team Argos-Shimano announced this today. The team will instead go into the race with John Degenkolb as captain. He finished fifth two years ago and last year, when Gerald Ciolek (MTN-Qhubeka) won the edition, which was characterized by unpredictable weather, arrived in San Remo in 18th place.
Argos-Shimano is taking a different approach than its Belgian competitors, Omega Pharma-QuickStep and Lotto Belisol. Both teams originally wanted to forgo their stars Mark Cavendish and André Greipel. The reason for this was the Pompeiana climb, which the organizers wanted to integrate a few kilometers before the finish and which would probably have been fatal for the sprinters. However, after the organizers took a U-turn last week and canceled the climb from the plan, both Cavendish and Greipel agreed to start.