Domenico Pozzovivo (Colnago - CSF Inox) celebrates his victory on the Cima Poffe.(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Sacha Modolo (Colnago - CSF) after the sprint(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
The Colnago-CSF Inox team has announced its line-up for 2011 season, with climber Domenico Pozzovivo and sprinters Manuel Belletti and Sacha Modolo leading the squad of 16 riders.
The team was awarded a Professional Continental licence this week and has retained 10 riders from the 2010 line-up and added four neo-pros and signed two other riders.
Both Pozzovivo and Giro stage winner Manuel Belletti have extended their contracts with the team until 2012.
Pozzovivo suffered in the Giro d’Italia due to injuries sustained in a crash on stage one in the Netherlands but hopes to target the seven mountain finishes in the 2011 Giro. He won the Brixia Tour in July and finished second in the Tre Valli Varesine behind Dan Martin. Belletti won stage 13 of the Giro close to his home in Cesena and was one of the sprinting revelations of the season in Italy, along with Sacha Modolo, who finished fourth at Milan-San Remo in his debut season as a professional.
The squad also retained Marco Frapporti, Federico Canuti, Gianluca Brambilla, Stefano Pirazzi, Simone Stortoni, Filippo Savini and Alberto Contoli. The new signings are stage racer Manuele Caddeo, who finished second overall in the GiroBio in 2009 and sprinter Andrea Piechele, who raced with Carmiooro-NGC in 2010.
The four new professionals in the team are some of the most talented in Italy: Angelo Pagani, Andrea Pasqualon, Paolo Locatelli and Omar Lombardi. Between them they won 15 elite and Under 23 races in 2010.
“The target will be to do well in the historical Italian races, which we hope to get invited to after this year’s good performances,” directeur sportif Roberto Reverberi said in a statement announcing the team’s line-up.
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“The high number of summit finishes at the Giro d’Italia look to be tailor-made for a climber like Domenico Pozzovivo, who has matured a lot over the last two seasons. He was only prevented from showing the result of all his work at the Giro because of a serious injury. Belletti has already won a stage of the Giro in Cesenatico, and he and Sacha Modolo are ready to build on the good things they showed last year from Tirreno-Adriatico onwards, notably at Milan-San Remo, where Modolo was 4th in his first season as a professional.”
The Colnago-CSF Inox team is set to begin the 2011 season at the Tour de Langkawi that begins on January 23. The first race in Europe is expected to be the Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria-Challenge Calabria on January 29
Stephen is one of the most experienced members of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. Before becoming Editor-at-large, he was Head of News at Cyclingnews. He has previously worked for Shift Active Media, Reuters and Cycling Weekly. He is a member of the Board of the Association Internationale des Journalistes du Cyclisme (AIJC).
