Team Cofidis time trials(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Adrien Petit happy to be at the Cofidis team presentation(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Cofidis are presented to the press and fans ahead of the 2012 Vuelta(Image credit: Sirotti)
Daniel Navarro Garcia (Cofidis) was on the attack during stage 19 and jumped from 13th to 8th on general classification(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Cofidis has taken the unusual step of announcing their line-up of nine riders for the Vuelta a España with three weeks still remaining before the start of the season’s third Grand Tour. The French Professional Continental team has indicated that the nine riders are subject to change given loss of form, illness or injury.
The team will be led by Frenchman Jérôme Coppel, but will not feature Spaniard Dani Navarro, who finished ninth at the Tour de France last month. Navarro is still recovering from that effort and is scheduled to follow a different race programme through to the end of the season.
The only Spaniard in the line-up is Luis Angel Maté, who will join Frenchmen Cyril Bessy, Yoann Bagot, Nicolas Edet, Adrien Petit and Stéphane Poulhies, and Belgians Nico Sijmens and Romain Zingle at start in Vilanova de Arousa on August 24.
The race will offer Cofidis the opportunity to add a flourish to what has been a disappointing season aside from Navarro’s top 10 Tour finish. The French outfit has failed to pick up a podium place, let alone a win, at any WorldTour event this season. They have just eight victories to their credit, the best of them Navarro’s victory in the slimmed down one-day version of the Tour of Murcia.
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