A small 3 day race in Italy. Should be dominated by the sprinters with Rigotto leading our team to try to pick up a stage win and as high a GC placing as possible.
The tour turned out to be a great success for our team. Stage one slipped away from us as Rigotto jumped onto the wrong train and had too much time to make up. However stage 2 turned out perfectly. The only real climb of the whole race came 25k from the finish. I sent my team to the front to set a fast pace to deter breaks and when one went away they were unable to get a significant gap. In the run in the break was swallowed by the Milram led peleton and Rigotto was delivered to the front to claim the teams first win of the season. A great team performance.
Rigotto looked very smart in yellow the next day but despite the best efforts of himself and the team he was unable to hold onto the jersey.
Despite being led off perfectly and hitting the front with about 2k to go he instantly started to slip backwards and dropped out of the top 10.
The overall win went to Robbie Hunter. Rigotto held onto 3rd overall and took the best young rider competition so overall a very satisfactory race for the team.
As the Giro del Grosseto finished the Cali Road race was just getting started. Grivko is leading the team over there. Hopefully i should have the report in a couple of days.
sorry about the delay, i should have the next report later on today when i get back from work. I've got brief reports of the Californian Road, Volta a Regiao do Algarve and the Tour du Var.
A tough stage race with a world class field. Grivko was our leader and hoping to use the race to get a sense of his fitness levels before going for a top 15 placing at the Tirreno-Adriatico. The race went well in the fact that he easily stayed with the main peleton over the flat and hilly stages, but that was mared by the fact that he didn't seem to have the strength to attack at the end and got quickly dropped on the only mountain stage. Grivko tries in vain to follow the attack of Botero during stage 5
In the end he had to settle for 35th overall as George Hincapie took the overall win an a tour determined by the 1 hilly stage and the 25ktt.
A 5 day stage race with 1 mountain stage and a hilly finish. Caruso would be going for the overall, maybe not the win but another top 5 or 10 would be nice. In the end it turned out to be a dissapointing tour for us. Despite there being a mountain stage, the actual mountain was too far from the finish to have an effect on the result of the race. Caruso was guarded all the way up by his team waiting to jump onto any attacks that looked good, but everyone was content to sit in the bunch and roll to the finish for a bunch sprint. Caruso being closly guarded up the only major climb of the tour
Every stage ended as a bunch sprint so the race was decided on bonuses with Barbosa of the Benfica team being the most consistant throughout the week. AS for my team Astarloa was my highest finisher in 16th at 1.06 down, the same time as Caruso and Ghisalberti who wern't even in the top 50 which shows how much the bunch stayed together in every stage.
At least Caruso looked comfortable throughout and with Ghisalberti and Astarloa he's got two decent domestiques to help him out at the Paris-Nice.
A lumpy 1 day race that would be good prep for the Milan-San Remo. Petacchi was the leader with everyone else having the simple job of getting him to the finish in 1st. Another race got away from us as the peleton split into 2 on the last short, sharpe climb. Petacchi, Rigotto, Velo and Zabel all got into the leading group and things were looking good. With about 25 k to go i sent my 3 lead out men to set a fast pace at the front so that no breaks would go away but despite giving 100% effort a large group of 13 attacked and would build up a gap that we couldn't reel in. Futher disapointment came when for some reason Petacchi didn't sprint when i told him to so he didn't even win the bunch sprint, he just drifted in with the peleton.
The race was won by Florencio from Botcharov and Pfannberger.
Up next a few more 1 day races. Zabel will be leading a squad at the Gent-Lokeren and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne in prep for the northern classic season and Petacchi continues his prep for M-SR with a trip to the Trofeo di Lugano.
