The first week of the Giro will present some great opportunities for Team Garmin-Cervélo to look for stage wins prior to fighting for the overall classification in the high mountains of week two and three.
Garmin-Cervélo brings a deep, balanced team to the season’s first Grand Tour with eyes on winning stages and putting a man in the top-10 overall at the Giro d’Italia.
Starting with the opening team time trial on Saturday, they’ll look to repeat the success the team had at the 2008 Giro d’Italia when winning the team time trial, and putting Christian Vande Velde into the maglia rosa for a day.
Sport director Lionel Marie said the nine-man squad lines up tomorrow in Torino with ambitions of being protagonists throughout the three-week race around Italy.
“We have a very good team composed of different elements that will allow us to be competitive throughout the Giro,” Marie said. “We will be strong for the team time trial and then have Tyler Farrar for the sprints. We will also have riders to go into breakaways as well as Christophe Le Mevel for the overall. Everyone is very motivated.”
Lets have a look at the first week of the Giro d’Italia, Stages 1-7.
The first week will present some great opportunities for Team Garmin-Cervélo. With tomorrow’s flat 21.5 kilometer team time trial, the team should have a good chance to take the first win and the maglia rosa with strong speed specialists like David Millar, Brett Lancaster, and track star Cameron Meyer.
Stage 2: presents a rare opportunity for the sprinters in this years Giro. Tyler Farrar should have a great chance to win with the support of a fast lead out team of Murilo Fisher, Brett Lancaster and Cameron Meyer.
Stages 3 – 6: are very tough to predict. On paper, you could call them sprint stages, but it’s hard to know what the final 20-30 kilometers look like without knowing the course very intimately. All four stages present great opportunities for attacking riders to get away late in the stage. Team Garmin-Cervélo rider Tom Peterson will be a good rider to have in a breakaway during one of these stages.
Stage 7: brings the race from rolling terrain into the first medium mountain stage with an uphill finish at Montevergine Di Mercogliano. The climb will be the first time that we see general classification contenders come to the front of the race to show their form.
Team Garmin-Cervélo will be looking to Christophe LeMevel as a contender for the GC.
Team Garmin-Cervélo roster:
Tyler Farrar,
David Millar
Murilo Fisher
Tom Peterson
Cameron Meyer
Peter Stetina
Brett Lancaster
Christophe LeMevel
Matt Wilson.
Presentation of the 2011 Giro d’Italia stages:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhvTkcAcFjM[/youtube]
2010 Giro Highlights:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtO30WSiUXM[/youtube]
Stay tuned for more news:
www.blog.castelli-cycling.com Team Garmin-Cervélo: www.slipstreamsports.com
Photo: Team Garmin-Cervélo
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