By Antonio J. Salmerón
Unipublic, the Vuelta a España's organizer, has granted the third wildcard to Spanish Pro-Continental Team Relax-GAM through an official press release, in which it announced that, "the twenty-second squad invited to participate in the Vuelta 2007 will be the Relax-GAM."
Relax-GAM Team Manager David Plaza, a former professional, stated to Cyclingnews its "gratefulness towards Unipublic" by the decision.
The squad has shown its serious commitment anti-doping by agreeing with Unipublic to not allow any cyclist linked to a doping affair to participate. "Oscar Sevilla, Francisco Mancebo and Ángel Vicioso, who did not appear on the pre-selection list, will not be in Vigo on September 1," Plaza clarified. On the contrary, "we have requested from the Czech cycling federation a certificate where it specifies that Jan Hruska is not linked to Operación Puerto in order to be able to guarantee his disposition to participate in the Vuelta."
Relax-GAM will likely call upon Santiago Pérez, who already has fulfilled a sanction of two years after testing positive for a blood transfusion, as well as Daniel Moreno, José Miguel Elías and Jesús Hernández. "But the decision will not be taken until we are nearer to the beginning of the Vuelta."
"We want to have a strong performance, as we have always had, but with more emphasis," Plaza concluded.
