Liquigas-Doimo Ready for Tour de France 2010

A line-up with a strong team spirit: that is the soul of Liquigas-Doimo for the 97th Tour de France, from July 3rd to 25th according to the team announcement:

"Ivan Basso and Roman Kreuziger are the hopes for a good placement in final classification: the Italian returns to France with high moral after the victory in Giro d’Italia while the Czech wants to search for a new quality leap after the great performances of 2008 and 2009. Together with them Liquigas-Doimo will be present with two climbers, Sylwester Szmyd and Francesco Bellotti, and five long distance riders: Kristjan Koren, Aliaksandr Kuchynski, Daniel Oss, Manuel Quinziato and Brian Bach Vandborg.

"We can play our chances for a good results in this Tour de France – affirms DS Zanatta -. Basso and Kreuziger allow us to aim high in general classification, thanks also to the reliability showed by their teammates. Koren and Oss, two young riders at their first experience in a long stages race, will have the opportunity to confirm the potential showed during the first part of the season".

For Ivan Basso the return in France will be first of all, "a great emotion. I’ll be at the departure with a very good condition, knowing the difficulties of the Tour but sure to be competitive. During these weeks I worked to maintain the resistance and to refine the legs. I face this new challenge with a strong wish to fight till Paris: I don’t preclude any results, the road will return the verdict".

"I’m ready in physique and quiet in mind – adds Kreuziger – because I prepared for this event without problems. This Tour is harder than 2008 and 2009: the Alps will be the first step to understand the chances of pretenders, while on Pyrenees the classification will be decided. I’ll exploit this last week to refine the legs to be at the top for Rotterdam prologue: I feel myself stronger in respect to other years and together with Ivan can give hard time to everyone".

Stories for the Italian Cycling Journal about rides, granfondos, having a good time cycling in Italy, Italian cycling history, etc. are very welcome. Contact me at veronaman@gmail.com. There are more than 1,400 stories in this blog. The search feature to the right works best for finding subjects in the blog and there is also a translate button at the bottom so you can translate each page.