I'm very proud to announce a brand new cycling team. The Thrige Pro Cycling company has former been delivering the biggest talents to the biggest teams. But now they've taken the next step and created their own cycling team.
- "The 'Thrige Pro Cycling' is Danish, but we won't go for just Danish riders. The whole Scandinavia is very interesting for us, but riers from countries like Spain, France and Italian should be in our thoughts as well, the director of Thrige Pro Cycling, Thrige, said.
Currently, the team is looking to solve the last couple of details, but it won't be a long before the final press meeting.
Edited by Thrige on 16-03-2010 08:34
Welcome to this press meeting, where a brand new team will be announced. Previous, we could announce that the 'Thrige Pro Cycling' would create a new professional cycling team.
Our main sponsor for the upcoming season is going to be the Italian bank, UniCredit. They've signed a one-year contract, but a new one could be made at the end of the season. UniCredit has more than 40 million customers and I'm sure they'll be a very nice addition to our team.
Castelli is going to be our clothes sponsor. Like UniCredit, Castelli has their roots in Italy, and is one of the greatest cycling clothes manufacturer in the Pro Cycling. They've made our shirt as well, and I'm very satisfied how it looks. This is the shirt our riders will be wearing:
Currently, no riders have signed any contract with the new team, but it'll probably be on the way.
Edited by Thrige on 26-02-2010 15:59
Ahmed Ahmed Peter Riis Andersen László Bodrogi Fabio Borghesi Alejandro Borrajo Davide Bragazzi Matthias Brändle Enrico Gasparotto Francesco Gavazzi Jordi Grau Alexander Kamp (staigare) Sebastian Lander (staigare) Julien Mazet Danilo Napolitano Sergio Ortega Rasmus Quaade Deni Rizio Daniel Teklehaimanot Tadej Valjavec Boy Van Poppel Brian Vandborg
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Team Goals 2011:
Win, Giro del Piemonte Win, Scandinavian Race Uppsala Top 5, Giro del Trentino Top 10, Post Danmark Rundt Top 10, Team Standings
With the transfer season half through, it's time for an update from the UniCredit management stab. And I can glady announce our sprinting team for the 2011-season.
Our main sprinter is going to be Danilo Napolitano. After a only a year at Vespa - Caffrey's, he's about to get some glory for our team. His main objectives is going to be Post Danmark Rundt and Scandinavian Race Uppsala, where we shall do well.
As our main sprinter he's of course going to need a lot of help from our leadout men, but that shouldn't be a problem.
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Alejandro Borrajo is another free agent signing. The Argentinian sprinter will, except for a few races, get his own chance. Maybe in the big and important races, he'll has jobs to do for his captain, Napolitano. But most likely, he's going for stage wins by himself.
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Yet another Italian sprinter. Francesco Gavazzi will get a part like Borrajo. Mainly riding for himself, but in some races, he should be leadout man for our captain, Napolitano - and maybe even Borrajo.
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When we talked about making this team, we decided to have a huge focus on sprinters. Boy Van Poppel is a great example of that. The young, belgian sprinter is very, very promising in the age of only 23 years.
As Borrajo and Gavazzi he'll get his chance to prove his worth his €175.000 wage.
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Our last 'big' signing is Enrico Gasparotto. Another Italian guy, but he's different from the two other. Enrico is best, when the race has been tough, and some of the other sprinters have lost some of their power.
He could turn out to be very useful for us this season.
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Next up: Mountain/Hill teamEdited by Thrige on 25-03-2010 21:36
Napolitano won also the Giro del Piemonte last season
The Scandinavian Race is going to be a very good race as 5 teams has at least a Top 5 goal there and two of them, my team and your team, should win it
Team Bianchi - 2012 Man-Game ProContinental Tour Champions
Last time you heard from us, we announced our sprinting team. But with 2 of our 5 goals in hilly ground, we of course need some other riders.
Firstly, our leader for the hilly racs will be Mathias Kessler. The German puncheur will aim for a victory in Giro del Lago di Garda, and a top-5 in Giro del Trentino. A very important rider for our team, and if we should manage to get a top-10 in the final rankings, this rider needs to deliver some results.
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Tadej Valjavec is a slovenian rider, who should be there on the climbs for Kessler. However, he'll have a lieutenant part, and should ride his own chance in some races. He's also a guy who needs to perform, if we should manage a top-10 in the final rankings.
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Our second lieutenant is Sergio Ortega. The Chilean climber arrived from Festina before this season, and he's ready to fight for some glory to our team. Hopefully, he can do a great season, and get a victory or two.
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Jordi Grau from Spain, is a true climber. His time trial is rather poor, but that's not where he should show his worth. He needs to be there on the climbs, and help Kessler, Valjavec and Ortega to achieve their goals.
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The first Danish rider we've announced this year is Peter Riis Andersen. He's a former Mountain Bike rider, and we hope he can take his MTB climbing on to the road. He'll be a useful helper on the climbs.
Due to a financial mistake, UniCredit has lost a rider. Honestly, not just a rider. Matthias Kessler should have been the leader of the team, but he'll not ride for our team next year. A huge disappointment, as he was the rider to achieve a lot of our goals.
In other news, dane Daniel Kreutzfeldt joins our team.
Edited by Thrige on 01-04-2010 19:15
The first race of the year. Not just for our team, but for the whole peloton. Even through we didn't had the biggest chance for a win, we did show the jerse with Daniel Teklehaimanot in the break away of the day.
But in the end, it was Pozzato who brought the victory to his new team, Mercedes Benz
However, Daniel Teklehaimanot did great and finished 29th, just inside the top-30.
The next race for UniCredit will be Tour de San Luis.
Edited by Thrige on 24-04-2010 21:49
The 2010-season hasn't really been successful for UniCredit. Ater the loss of Mathias Kessler, Danilo Napolitano has showed to be the only one to grab stage wins. Sergio Ortega has performed quite well, but he seems to be more like a top-10 GC guy.
If UniCredit was barely visible in Bloemfontein, Tour de San Luis wasn’t much of a show off either. In the GC, we had hoped for Sergio Ortega and Tadej Valjavec, but none of them delivered the wanted results. Instead UniCredit’s best result was Sergio Ortega’s 7th place in the TT. Valjavec was the best placed in the GC, finishing 47th, almost 14 minutes to the winner, Rein Taaramäe.
Then we had more luck in Italy. We brought a great line-up, in our way to deliver Danilo Napolitano in the sprint. In the first stage it wasn’t Napolitano’s time to shine, though. Enrico Gasparotto didn’t show up just to help his captain, and he gave us a very nice 4th in the first stage. And he continued to improve. After a messy 2nd stage, where none of our guys showed the jersey, we were back for the third stage. Once again, Gasparotto was our best man, with him finishing 7th in the sprint. Stage 4 of Giro di Sardegna, brought us the first win of the season. Napolitano found the right wheel, and sprinted him to his first win of the season. The last stage in Italy was close to another win for Napolitano, but he finished just outside top-3 with his 4th place. Gasparotto was our best man in the GC finishing 6th.
In Malaysia it was up to Napolitano to bring some more stage wins to UniCredit, while Ortega had GC-hopes. Stage 1 was a close call, but in the end, Napolitano and Van Poppel had to settle for 4th and 5th. For the second stage, Napolitano was very well placed in the sprint. He took Guerao’s wheel, and he was able to sprint for the victory – his second win, and so the team’s. While wearing the point’s jersey, Napolitano wasn’t able to keep up from yesterdays stage, when he finished 5th in the sprint. The day after, Danilo was back to shine once again. He found a great wheel, and finished his sprint with another victory. Napolitano had some good results in the last couple of stages, but he couldn’t grab another win. While our sprinter can be satisfied about his performance, Sergio Ortega can’t be too happy. He finished only 30th in the GC.
Our next race was in Spain with Vuelta a Castilla y Leon. Teklehaimanot showed he had found himself in a great shape, when he finished 8th in the first stage. In the next day’s time trial, Sergio Ortega had a great result when he ended up with a 4th place – promising for the upcoming stages. And after some very steady top-5 places he finished the race as 6th. His best result of the season.
Profronde van Drenthe was not a big story for us. Brandle tried to attack quite along from finish, but he had absolutely no chance to survive. Instead it was Gasparotto who was our best man, with this 25th place.
The next race in Italy for us was the Giro del Trentino race. Ortege once again showed a great result in a time trial, when he finished 7th in the 17k long TT - once again, looking promising for his GC-hopes. He was even eight in the GC before the last stage. But in the last stage he lost almost 5 minutes, and moved from 8 to 14. A little disappointment, with his 8th in the GC before the last stage.
We’ll be back with more reports.
- UniCredit Team
Another update - including a beautiful stage win in Columbia
While UniCredit has been struggling to make results in their very first season, Vuelta a Columbia brought some succes - and a victory.
[img-l]https://i51.tinypic.com/2nrm0sh.jpg[/img-l] 2011 has been a really poor season for UniCredit who has only had 3 victories this season, all won by team captain Danilo Napolitano.
The 'World View Challenge' wasn't much of a succes to us. We never managed to fight for the stage wins, and our best man in the GC finished 18th (Bragazzi).
In May we had 2 races in Belgium. The first being '4 jours de Dunkerque'. We brought 2 good sprinters in Borrajo and Van Poppel. Borrajo showed some good skills in the first 2 stages finishing 4th and 7th, but it was Boy Van Poppel who came closest to the win in his home country. With a really strong move inside the last 10 km but was overtaking in the last 100 meters. Bad luck for our sprinting talent, but still a nice 2nd place victory.
[img-r]https://i56.tinypic.com/okq3ap.png[/img-r] After the stage race our team went to Netherland to compete in the one-day classic 'Dutch Food Valley Classic'. We had a great set-up for Napolitano here with Gavazzi, Borrajo and Borghesi being his lead-out train. Our guys did a really nice job, but in the end Staf Scheirlinckx managed to keep the peloton behind as Danilo finished 2nd. A disappointment as we was really, really close to the win.
Our last race in May, Tour of Belgium. A rather flat race with means we brought our sprinters here. However, in the first stage it was Brian Vandborg who came out as our best man with his 6th spot. Surely the team manager wasn't satisfied with his sprinters performance as the train was much more organized the following day. Unfortunately, Greg Van Avermeat took his second win in a row and Gavazzi had to settle with 2nd. Vandborg wasn't done, however. In the last two stages he finished 8nd and 3rd, and showed the Danish champion shirt honour once again - also by finishing 7th in the GC.
Vuelta a Columbia was our time to shine. We brought a strong team including Sergio Ortega, Jordi Grau, Davide Bragazzi and Brian Vandborg. Basically our riders showed great skills almost every day of the 15-stage race. Vandborg and Ortega in the TT's, Bragazzi, Grau and Vandborg in the breaks and Ortega in the GC.
Bragazzi even showed he can sprint with a 2nd place in one of the flat stages. Ortega started the race kind of poor, but fought himself back into the GC and ended up finishing 7th. But the greatest part of the race was 14th stage. Jordi Grau made a solo attack from the very beginning of the day. He rode really, really well and by the 50 km mark he had almost 15 minutes in advantage to the peloton. He lost some of the advantage in the end of the stage, but he still managed to grab a really nice stage win in Columbia.
After a rather disappoing season UniCredit are looking forward to a new season. A lot of riders are not going to get a renewal and the team is looking for new blood.
However, UniCredit is still going to be the main sponsor next season, in fact, the new jersey is being designed right now!
The Team's HQ is going to be redesigned as well so look out for the new changes in near future.
