Cycling Pro Road & Mtb

Team Katusha is ready for "Milano-Sanremo"

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Parent Category: Cycling Pro Road & Mtb

Category: News Cycling Pro Road & Mtb 2011

Published on Thursday, 17 March 2011 15:04

Written by Luca Salvatelli

Next Saturday the curtain over the first big classic of the international cycling calendar will raise: the "Milano-Sanremo", the most prestigious Italian one-day race. The "Classica di Primavera" rates in its gold book several men linked to Team Katusha: Filippo Pozzato, the last Italian rider that won this race in the 2006 edition; Mario Cipollini, Russian team's technical advisor and 2002 Milano-Sanremo winner; Andrei Tchmil, Katusha's President who have in his sumputous career the 1999 edition victory. The World Tour team roster will be as follows:

Mikhail Ignatyev

Vladimir Isaychev

Alexander Kolobnev

Vladimir Gusev

Leif Hoste

Aliaksandr Kuchysnki

Luca Paolini

Filippo Pozzato

Sport directors: Serge Parsani, Claudio Cozzi

Serge Parsani himself, before this event, explains what could be the right strategy to face such a long race like "Milano-Sanremo": "The tactics, in races like this, is conditioned by lots of factors. First of all, we'll have to consider the weather condition. Then, as always, we'll have to see how the race develops in its first part. In particular, we'll have to understand if there will be important escape or just extemporary escapes bound to finish in few kilometres. Finally, we have to be careful of what happens in the end, especially in "Cipressa" and "Poggio", where lots of the last edition were decided".

Team Katusha counts a lot in Filippo Pozzato, its Classics rider: "Pippo, at least till now, didn't obtain any good result in this 2011, but he arrives at the event in a good shape. He cares a lot about this race and he's very motivated: for this reason I'm sure he will be one of the protagonists". In order to be one of the protagonists, the Luca Paolini's support will be crucial: but in the last few days, the rider from Como suffered of a ball fall and he had to retire from "Tirreno-Adriatico": "Luca - says Parsani - suffers of a pain in his knee, but his shape is getting better and he has no more sternum troubles. He will be not at his 100% for sure, also because of three days of inactivity he needed to recover. However, two days are left before the race will start, he keeps on treating his injury, so his shape has great chances to improve". Parsani have clear ideas about who can be the principal Pozzato's rivals for the final victory: "We have to keep an eye on Gilbert and Freire, which proved to be in a very good shape, and on the Garmin-Cervelo team: with riders such as Haussler, Farrar and Hushovd, they have lots of strategies between choose from. In the last years, the Milano-Sanremo had always been decided by a bunch sprint: let's hope this year a little group will manage to take some advantage and keep it till the end.."