An official press release announced today that a new italian cycling team will be joining the Continental Tour. The main sponsor will be Intesa Sanpaolo bank, the team wearing just the bank's first name. Specialized was announced as bike provider, while Giro will be providing the team with helmets and other protective equipment.
Directeur sportif for the new italian team will be Fabio Rossetto, while the rest of the staff and riders' names haven't been mentioned anywhere.
The beginning of the season is quickly approaching and the Intesa Cycling Team is also preparing for it. The season goals for the team were announced today:
Win, GP Plouay
Top 5, E3 Prijs
Top 5, Giro dell'Emilia
Top 15, Team Standings
Stage Wins, Tour Meditteraneen
Team DS, Fabio Rossetto, declared the following:
"Although we are an italian cycling team, we decided not to focus only on races from Italy, thus setting goals for french and belgian races too. We'll try to perform well on the international scene and make a name for ourselves."
The goals were then analyzed:
"We decided to go for the win in the GP Plouay. It's profile will surely make it impossible for a fluke win, only the hard men surviving the treacherous circuit. We are confident that we'll have some of those hard men in our team."
"A top 5 in Giro dell'Emilia is the only goal related to an italian race. The race was won in 2010 by Giro champ Damiano Cunego, so I know this race will be quite tough. We will need some luck to be in the top 5, but I'm confident we can make it."
"Since our team is generally focues on hilly and cobbled classics, we had to set a goal for cobbled classics too. A top 5 in the E3 Prijs Vlaanderen was our choice. Although the race is generally used in preparation for the Ronde or Paris - Roubaix, we will make sure our cobble experts peak for this race and deliver the performance required."
"I'm not sure our consistency will be good enough, so we chose to target only a top 15 in the Team Standings. Hopefully, we won't have too much trouble in completing this task."
"The last goal for the season: at least a stage win in the Tour Meditteraneen should satisfy us. Although it's early in the season, again, we'll make sure our riders are in form for this race."
Edited by arthon on 10-03-2010 07:20
Starting a new team is never easy. It takes money, thorough preparation and patience. But getting to see the result of your work is worth all that effort, even more. With that thought in mind, we started this team. After signing our desired riders, only one thing remained: getting to do some proper racing and trying to deliver some results.
Team Intesa started the season at the Down Under Classic, with our star sprinter Yauheni Hutarovich ready to prove he's worth the money. Unfortunately, Hutarovich failed to make an impression and finished 35th, the results of bad positioning being obvious. The same lineup was at the start of the Tour Down Under two days later. Hutarovich was cleary having trouble finding his form, finishing 81st on stage 1. On the other hand, another Intesa rider stood-out from the crowd: Eros Cappechi.
Eros Cappechi attacking on TDU stage 2
Cappechi attacked on stage 1, was second on the day's only KOM, and resumed his aggressive riding by attacking on stage 2. This time, he won the day's KOM and claimed the KOM jersey, which he would keep until the end of the race, despire vigorous attacks from other riders. While Cappechi was flying high on stage 2, the day's only hill proved difficult for Hutarovich, as he was dropped from the main bunch.
Team Intesa trying to pace Hutarovich back to the peloton
On stage 4, Hutarovich showed quite an improvement, finishing 14th in the bunch sprint, on the eve of the queen stage. Stage 5, with the two climbs of the Willunga, was clearly the most difficult stage. Only 45 riders finished in the main bunch, while Yukiya Arashiro of Red Bull won the sprint. More important for us was that Cappechi finished 11th on the stage and moved into 10th overall, 42 seconds behind race leader Arashiro. With the GC already settled, stage 6 was another battle to be fought amongst the sprinters. Hutarovich continued with his improvement and finished 5th, while Cappechi was caught out in a crash and moved down to 13th overall. Although we started the TDU with some dissapointing performances, in the end Team Intesa got the job done and came away with the goods.
After a pleasing week of racing, it was time to head back to the team headquarters in Verona, before prepairing for departure towards Argentina and Portugal. Tour de San Luis was bound to start on the 30th of January, while Volta ao Alrgarve two days later, on the 1st of February.
At the start of the Tour de San Luis, we lined up a squad containing sprinters Ruben Bongiorno and Mirko Lorenzetto and time-trial expert Dmitri Grabovski. We clearly came here focused on the flatter stages and the 19km time-trial on stage 3. Stage 1 featured a KOM after 12 kms, but apart from that it was a stage for the sprinters. In the end, three teams managed to organize sprint trains: Red Bull, Bbox and us. Red Bull gradually faded and it was between our and the Bbox train.
Lorenzetto leading out two argentinians: Bongiorno and Richeze of UBS
Bongiorno kicked early and distanced everybody, except Richeze who was glued to his wheel. With the line quickly approaching, Richeze delivered his punch and won the stage, ahead of Bongiorno. His second place was our best result so far in a stage, but we did not have to wait much longer for that much desired first win. Stage 2 was clearly one for the climbers, so we preserved our strenght for the time-trial on stage 3. Grabovski was low on the GC, so he was one of the early starters. After a few good times by Bbox riders, Grabovski dropped the hammer and set a new best time of 25'32", 36 seconds better than the previous best time, held by Leif Hoste of Bbox. At the end of the stage, Grabovski held on to his lead by only 1 second, ahead of Lloret of Petronas, and came away with the win.
Ukrainian TT Champ Dmitri Grabovski laying down the law
After several months of hard work and a full month of racing, Team Intesa got it's first win. And I hope it will be the first of many to come.
Fabio Rossetto, Intesa Cycling Team DSEdited by arthon on 11-05-2010 21:06
