Tinkoff ready to close out season in style

Tinkoff Credit Systems is ready to tackle its final part of the season, with the Vuelta a España the biggest highlight. Directeur sportif Orlando Maini will guide the team, along with Dmitri Konychev and Claudio Cozzi. As always the team intends to do its part of an active race.

It especially sets its hopes on a stage win via Mikhail Ignatiev. "Ignatiev will start the Vuelta in his optimal form. He is coming from the Olympic Games in Beijing with high morale and a desire to battle," Maini said. "We also have [Vasil] Kiryienka and the trio of Pedraza-Petrov-Serrano who can race for the overall."

The entire team for the Vuelta will be Pavel Brutt, Nikita Eskov, Mikhail Ignatiev, Vasil Kiryienka, Walter Pedraza, Evgeni Petrov, Ivan Rovny Ricardo Serrano, Nikolay Trusov.

Before heading to Spain, a different team will tackle the Tour of Ireland, which starts on Wednesday. The race runs from August 27 to 31. Ilya Chernetsky, Alexander Gottfried, Massimo Graziato, Sergey Klimov Luca Mazzanti, Alberto Loddo and Bernardo Riccio, with directeur sportif Omar Piscina.