Giant-Alpecin backs Geschke for Milano-Torino, Dumoulin in Il Lombardia - News Shorts
Russian team for Worlds, Perry signs with Cycling Academy, Gibbons replaces Janse van Rensburg on South African Worlds team
Giant-Alpecin for Milano-Torino and Il Lombardia
Giant-Alepcin today announced the team’s rosters for Wednesday’s Milano-Torino and Saturday’s Il Lombardia. The rosters for both races are almost identical, with the exception of adding Tom Dumoulin in place of Martijn Tusveld for Lombardia.
Simon Geschke will lead the charge for the team at Milano-Torino. Team coach Aike Visbeek said the finale in the Italian 1.HC race, which features two short, sharp climbs in the last 25km, suits the German rider well.
"We have selected a strong team with the objective of racing aggressively here in Italy and aiming to be present in the breakaways," Visbeek said. "The important moment of the parcours will be the finale where the riders have to twice tackle the Superga climb on the outskirts of Torino, so we have to stay attentive and be at the front of the bunch.
"Our aim is to perform well with Simon as the finale suits his characteristics. For Warren [Barguil] we will see how he can compete and see how he has recovered since La Vuelta."
Visbeek said Dumoulin will be the team’s supported rider in Il Lombardia, the final WorldTour race of the season.
"The race organisers have made the last 100km of the course more difficult compared to previous editions, which should make it an interesting race," he said.
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"We also continue with the aim of racing offensively and we should be able to make an impact on this race. We are hoping to have a strong ride with Tom, who is riding well at the moment and it will be a good race that fits in towards the World Championships in Qatar. He is capable of overcoming the climbs and he will be well supported by the team."
Giant-Alpecin for Milano-Torino: Warren Barguil, Johannes Fröhlinger, Simon Geschke, Fredrik Ludvigsson, Tobias Ludvigsson, Sam Oomen, Sindre Skjøstad Lunke, Martijn Tusveld
Giant-Alpecin for Il Lombardia: Warren Barguil, Tom Dumoulin, Johannes Fröhlinger, Simon Geschke, Fredrik Ludvigsson, Tobias Ludvigsson, Sam Oomen, Sindre Skjøstad Lunke
Russian team for World Championships named
The Russians team of six men, three women and six U23 men has been named for the UCI World Championships in Doha next month.
The elite men's team is without the services of the country's top-ranked rider Ilnur Zakarin. Instead, Viacheslav Kuznetsov will lead the team, with Gazprom's Roman Maikin, Katusha's Anton Vorobyev, Maxim Belkov, Sergey Lagutin and Alexander Porsev.
Vorobyev and Belkov will compete in the individual time trial.
For the elite women, Olympic Games silver medalist Olga Zabelinskaya will lead the way in both events, with Oksana Kozonchuk and Alexander Chekina joining for the road race.
Artem Nych, Pavel Sivakov, Sergey Rostovtsev, Maxim Piskunov, Alexander Kulikovskii, and Stepan Kuryanov make up the U23 men's team, with Nych and Sivakov racing the time trial.
Canadian U23 champ Perry signs two-year deal with Cycling Academy
The Cycling Academy recently announced the signing of three-time and current Canadian U23 road champion Ben Perry to a two-year deal that will take him through 2018.
Perry, 22, comes to the Israeli Pro Continental team after two years with Silber Pro Cycling, a Canaadian-based Continental team that surged to the front of the North American domestic peloton this year.
Perry claimed eight wins in 2015 with Silber and notched 13 podium finishes. This season he won the opening stage at the Grand Prix de Saguenay, where he also won the jersey for best young rider. He also won the best young rider category at the Philadelphia Cycling Classic after finishing seventh there. He finished his season with the Canadian national team at the WorldTour Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal, where he on the KOM jersey.
Cycling Academy manager Ran Margaliot got a chance to watch Perry firsthand at Saguenay and at the Tour de Beauce when the Israeli team competed there, and he came away impressed with the young Canadian’s aggressive and daring style.
“Benjamin impressed us significantly with the way he won that first stage, overcoming tough weather conditions, as he rode the whole stage in a breakaway, finishing it off with a winning sprint against our own solid Estonian rider, Mihkel Raim,” Margaliot said.
“This is exactly what we look for in an Academy rider: talent and fighting spirit. When we later met him, we discovered a desire by Benjamin to do whatever it takes to get to the next level and compete against the best, which included a relocation to Europe, foregoing a potentially better contract in the U.S. His attitude convinced us that he would fit in perfectly on our team, and become a real asset."
Perry has already flown to Tel Aviv for a training camp with both the Cycling Academy and the Canadian National Team ahead of the world championships next month, when he will represent his country in the U23 road race.
Gibbons to replace van Rensburg on South African Worlds team
Ryan Gibbons will replace Reinardt Janse van Rensburg on the South African team competing at the UCI World Championships in Doha next month, the South African cycling federation announced today.
Van Rensburg, who rides for Dimension Data, fractured his shoulder in a crash during stage 6 of the Eneco Tour. The 27-year-old winner of the Tour de Langkawi earlier this year finished the stage but did not start the next day. He will not recover in time to compete in Doha.
Gibbons, 23, has been racing as a stagiaire with Dimesnion Data since moving up from the program’s development team in July. This will be his first time competing in the Elite men’s world championship.
