As the Tour of Missouri and Vuelta a Espana wind down, the cycling season ends with the 2009 World Championships in Mendrisio, Switzerland Sept. 23-27.

With Garmin-Slipstream’s Christian VandeVelde conceivably out due to a broken hand suffered in Stage 1 of the Tour of Missouri, we could be seeing the deepest American men’s team in years. It begs the question: who ya gonna call?

As the September 14 announcement deadline looms, the folks at USA Cycling have their hands full this year. Other than recently crowned U.S. time trial and road champions Dave Zabriskie of Garmin-Slipstream and George Hincapie of Columbia-HTC, both of whom should be locks to make the team should they choose to ride, here are contenders for the other possible six spots:

Lance Armstrong (Astana)

Levi Leipheimer (Astana)

Tom Zirbel (Bissell)

Ben Jacques-Maynes (Bissell)

Andy Jacques-Maynes (Bissell)

Danny Pate (Garmin)

Will Frischkhorn (Garmin)

Tyler Farrar (Garmin)

Taylor Phinney (Trek-Livestrong)

Brad Huff (Jelly Belly)

Michael Creed (Team Type 1)

Floyd Landis (Team OUCH)

That’s a lot of firepower. Who would you pick as the U.S. Men’s Elite team for Worlds?

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