By Gregor Brown in Venice
Jonathan Vaughters, team manger of Garmin Chipotle, hopes his team can take the Giro d'Italia leader's jersey for a second year. At the 2009 route presentation Saturday in Venice, he gave the team's goals for the Italian three-week race, May 9 to 31.
"Our objective in the race is to win the team time trial and try to win another stage along the way. Maybe we have guy, Tom Danielson or Trent Lowe, to try and do well in the overall classification," Vaughters said to Cyclingnews.
Vaughters prepared his team specifically for the team trial that opened the 2008 Giro. He succeeded and saw American Christian Vande Velde take the maglia rosa. LINK please.
He will have another opportunity in 2009 with the 20.5-kilometre team time trial in Venice on the opening day. Vaughters also noted that the 61.7-kilometre individual time trial in stage 12 suites his rider perfectly.
"It is like a miniature road stage. It is a time trial for Christian Vande Velde. It is ideal for his motor -- it is technical and hilly. I don't know that he will be ready to fight for the GC in the Giro, but he can win that time trial."
The stage from Sestri Levante to Riomaggiore is the longest time trial in 13 years and nearly double the longest time trial of 2008. Vaughters will not limit his team to the time trials, though.
"We will send a team to try to win the team time trail, but this year we will stick a climber on the back of the train to try to win the Giro. We don't have a lot of climbers on our team, but it could be Lowe, Dan Martin or Danielson."
He will observe his riders as the 2009 season unfolds before deciding on who to send to the Giro d'Italia and who to send to the Tour de France. He will likely travel to Madrid on Wednesday to see the Vuelta a España route unveiled.
