Italia, Italia, Italia! We have an Italian themed EuroTrash today with Barloworld to ride on Italian steeds next year, name changes at two Italian teams, two different Italian stars change teams, another Italian retires and of course we have all the latest on Michael Rasmussen’s letter writing abilities from where else, but Italy!
Rabobank’s Report
The conclusions by Rabobank’s independent enquiry into the ‘Rasmussen Affair’ were presented to the press this week with blame for the affair spread out between Rasmussen, the team itself and the UCI. The independent enquiry was headed by Peter Vogelzang, a former chief of the Utrecht Police and head of the 2004 Dutch Olympic team who was determined to get the bottom of the facts of the case, something he feels that he did with the 48-page report.
One crucial point concluded by the enquiry is that Rasmussen should never have been allowed to start the Tour de France as he broke UCI rule 220, stating that: “a rider will not be allowed to participate in a major tour if he has missed a test or received a recorded warning within 45 days of the start of the tour.”
Rasmussen broke this rule in particular with his numerous misleading statements to both his team and the UCI in relation to his whereabouts in June, leading to his missed tests and one recorded warning by the UCI.
Also brought into question by the enquiry were Rasmussen’s letter writing abilities…he wrote a letter to the UCI which arrived on June 11, explaining that he would be in Mexico from June 4-12, but the letter was postmarked from Italy on June 8th! Another letter that he sent to the UCI to explain his whereabouts for the end of June was also an interesting one - The UCI received this letter on June 28th which indicated that he would be staying in Mexico from June 12 – 29, a bit late there Michael!
Conclusion by the enquiry? Obviously you don’t want Rasmussen as a pen pal, but besides that Vogelzang concluded,
“Rasmussen deliberately provided incorrect whereabouts information on multiple occasions and could therefore deliberately not be tested for a given period. When an athlete is deliberately out of reach for doping testing organisations during a specific period before the Tour de France, and does not provide a credible explanation, this creates a strong suspicion that he may be using substances from the forbidden doping list.”
The UCI itself also came under some fire from the enquiry, “The UCI is insufficiently precise, insufficiently unambiguous, insufficiently coordinated, insufficiently effective and overly random with respect to its formulation and application of its own anti-doping regulations and sanctions measures.”
With Rasmussen meeting with the UCI yesterday, an official statement from the UCI is expected soon on the matter with most experts predicting that Rasmussen will receive a lengthy suspension – despite never actually giving a positive test. According to the UCI’s own regulations, the Dane’s misleading of inspectors in relation to his whereabouts leading up to the Tour de France is enough to constitute a doping violation.
Savoldelli To Leave Astana
Fomer Giro D’Italia winner (2002 & 2005) Paolo Savoldelli has announced to the Italian press that he will leave his current team, Astana in favour of Swiss based team, LPR. According to the team’s manager, Fabio Bordonali, ‘Il Falco’ will formalise his contract with the team in the coming days meaning that Salvodelli will be stepping away from a big ProTour team in Astana to the much, much smaller, team LPR. With the ProTour teams no longer getting automatic invites to the GrandTours though, this ‘step down’ shouldn’t pose too many problems for Salvodelli as LPR should get an invite to the race that he really wants to perform well at again – the Giro d’Italia.
With new LPR manager Bordonali (ex Tenax manager) having excellent relations with the Giro organisers, LPR’s inclusion in the race is almost guaranteed and with the lack of ProTour races where Salvodelli would HAVE to attend in Astana being eliminated, Salvodelli will be able to train and concentrate next year resting soley on one objective – capturing the Giro d’Italia prize once more.
Another Lampre Man To Liquigas
Lampre’s cyclo-cross champion, Enrico Franzoi has switched from the pink and blue colours in favour of the lime green of Liquigas next year, joining his team mate Daniel Bennati at the rival Italian ProTour team for 2008. The 25 year-old Italian has signed a two year contract with Liquigas and will continue to ride cyclo-cross in the off season – something that Lampre management was apparently unhappy about. Franzoi’s love has always been cyclo-cross racing though, winning the Italian National Championships for the last two seasons and he was also World U23 Champion in 2002-2003.
Not just a cyclo-cross racer though, Franzoi was very impressive in his workload for the Lampre team leaders this year along with some great efforts in the Classics – including a 220km break in the Tour of Flanders which was won by team mate, Alessandro Ballan. With Liquigas, Franzoi will be a strong component of their Classic’s squad and will also be hoping for a good performance in the upcoming Cyclo-Cross World Championships in Treviso, Italy in January.
Selle-Italia To Change Names
The team with possibly the longest name in Professional cycling, the ‘Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni-Selle Italia Professional Continental Team’ will be changing names next year, after long time title sponsor, Selle Italia have announced that they will scale down their sponsorship and become a second tier sponsor of the team for 2008. The new sponsor to step into the void is Italian toy company, ‘Androni Giocattoli’ but the actual tongue twisting nature of the team’s name is still undetermined with all the minor sponsorships still to be confirmed, the actual team name has not yet been finalised. It will have Androni Giocattoli ('Androni Toys') in there somewhere though and most likely the team will become known as the Androni Giocattoli team as the last incarnation was generally referred to as ‘Selle Italia’….much to the chagrin of all the other sponsors I’m sure!
Of course the big name to race in the team next year is two-time Giro d'Italia champion Gilberto Simoni who will be well supported by European Tour champion Alessandro Bertolini amongst others.
Full team for 2008: Gilberto Simoni, Alessandro Bertolini, Santo Anzà, Denis Bertolini, Emiliano Donadello, Gabriele Missaglia, Leonardo Moser, Manuel Belletti, Francesco Ginanni, José Serpa, Niklas Axelsson, Ruslan Ivanov, Carlos José Ochoa, Richard Ochoa, Jesus Perez and Jakson Rodriguez.
Another Italian Changes Names
Yet another Italian Professional Continental Team will change their name next year with the just announced news that Panaria-Navigare will be known as the CSF Group-Navigare team next year.
The reason for the change was once again the loss of a long term title sponsor in Panaria but management were able to find the required replacement sponsor needed to keep the team alive in the form of CSF Inox Group. The company is a business that produces various models of pumps and valves for the food and beverage and pharmaceutical industries with a yearly turnover of nearly 50 million Euros a year and is based in Italy.
The team is yet to finalise their complete roster for 2008 but the big names from 2007 will remain with Italians, Paride Grillo & Emanuele Sella and the Mexican Julio-Alberto Perez-Cuapio.
Paris-Nice To Change It’s Name?
Still on the ‘name changing’ theme is the announcement that Paris-Nice organiser, the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) has changed the starting place for next year’s Paris-Nice. Instead of starting in Paris as the name suggests, the race will now start almost two hours away in Amilly to the west of Paris with a prologue around the village. The Amilly-Nice stage race? It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it though, does it? ASO obviously thought so too as the race will be resting as the Paris-Nice.
Instead of the traditional short prologue along the Seine outside the ASO offices, the prologue in Amilly will be more than two times the length at 9.3km, with officials hoping that the longer prologue will create some bigger time gaps at the start of the week long stage race. The actual prologue itself kicks off next year on March the 9th as per normal in this classic race, often called the ‘Race to the Sun’, as the riders leave the north of the country, often under snowy cold conditions in search of the early Spring sunshine in the south of France.
Zabel Pipped At The Post – Again!
In sad news for all you Erik Zabel fans out there, the German legend has once again been beaten in the dying stages of a race, by finishing 2nd in the Munich Six Day race in a nail biting finish. Home town favourites Erik Zabel and Leif Lampater were leading for most of the 6 days until the reigning Madison World Champions, Bruno Risi and Franco Marvulli (Swi) made their move on night 5, taking the lead on points and despite some close finishes, they never relinquished their lead.
Final Results:
1 Bruno Risi / Franco Marvulli (Swi) 323 pts
2 Erik Zabel / Leif Lampater (Ger) 299
3 Robert Slippens / Danny Stam (Ned) 158 (1 lap down)
4 Robert Bartko / Iljo Keisse (Ger/Bel) 237 (2 laps down)
5 Andreas Beikirch / Erik Mohs (Ger) 204
Zanini Calls It A Day
Italian veteran, Stefano Zanini (Predictor Lotto) has this week announced his retirement from pro cycling after being unable to find a suitable contract for next year in the current tough job market. Zanini has been a pro for an amazing 17 seasons, through that time logging 30 victories along the way, with the most important victories being the Amstel Gold Race in 1996, a Tour de France stage in 2000 & two Giro d’Italia stages in 1994 & 2001.
In recent years Zanini has concentrated on being a team worker for the likes of Robbie McEwen at Predictor-Lotto, but his work wasn’t enough to regain employment with the ProTour squad, nor gain enough interest from other teams. Previous teams that Zanini had ridden for in his career include, Gewiss -Bianchi, Mapei and Liquigas.
Tour of Elk Grove Reacts
Tour of Elk Grove officials have reacted to the news of Nathan O’Neill’s recent positive test by deleting him from the results of the event which he had won this year.
This leads to Mike Friedman (Team Slipstream powered by Chipotle) being named as the new winner of the 2007 edition of the three-stage race in place of Nathan O'Neill, with Slipstream team mate, Tim Duggan moving into 2nd and Ivan Dominguez (Toyota-United) into 3rd. It was at the Tour of Elk Grove where O’Neill gave the fateful test and organizer and Mayor of Elk Grove, Craig Johnson had this to say on the news,
“We're obviously disappointed but we will continue to be aggressive about testing and holding our riders to the highest possible standards.”
After publicly apologizing for his positive test to the appetite suppressant, Phentermine, O’Neill has returned the US $33,500 that he earned at the event which will be now redistributed to the ‘new’ top riders, making for an unexpected season ending bonus for some. The Tour of Elk Grove was held August 11-12 this year with organizers again hoping for a good tour next year – although it will be absolutely without Nathan O’Neill who has now been banned for life from the event.
Barloworld On Bianchis Next Year
After last Thursday’s announcement that Cannondale had withdrawn from their sponsorship of team Barloworld is the news this week that Claudio Corti’s squad have signed with Italian manufacturer, Bianchi for 2008. The new look Barloworld team will now be riding Bianchi's 928 Carbon SL and new custom Carbon T-Cube machines next season.
Bianchi CEO Bob Ippolito stated on the deal,
“Bianchi is proud to join forces with a successful team like Barloworld run by team manager Claudio Corti. The team's long-term strategy is to create a successful team, working closely with its technical sponsors. I hope we can lay the foundations for a successful relationship that will last many years.”
Chris Selden lives down under in Palm Beach, Queensland, Australia - but spends his summers riding, racing and guiding cycling trips in Europe.
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