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A youthful, confident gold lineup in the Vuelta

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Parent Category: News

Category: News 2011

Published on Monday, 23 August 2010 17:52

Written by Luca Salvatelli

Only five days from the start of the 65th Vuelta a España, the FOOTON-SERVETTO-FUJI team has confirmed the 9-man squad that will head to Seville on Wednesday to take part in the opening team time trial on Saturday 28th. The Gold Generation's lineup, once again full of youth (just over 26 years old of average age), will feature some big names in the likes of Rafael Valls (ESP, 23), one of the biggest revelations in this year's Tour de France, and Manuel Cardoso (POR, 27), a rider to follow closely in the bunch sprints. Alberto Benítez (ESP, 29), Arkaitz Durán (ESP, 24), David Gutiérrez Gutiérrez (ESP, 28), Enrique Mata (ESP, 25), Giampaolo Cheula (ITA, 31), Martin Pedersen (DEN, 27) and David Vitoria (SUI, 25) complete the roster, directed across the entire three weeks of racing by two directors fully aware of the hardness in the big Spanish race: Joxean Fernández Matxin and Sabino Angoitia.

Matxin looks forward to succeed in the upcoming Spanish course, with many options to shine in all kinds of stages: “Our goal in this race will be searching for the stage wins. We'll count on Cardoso for the sprints, which we blindly trust he'll be racing hard, and we'll be also fighting with Valls, who should do well after his Tour de France. We will be trying to take Rafa as much forward as possible in the key stages, but overall we'll be fighting into the breakaways to claim those successes. We have riders specially suited for the breaks, such as Cheula, Gutiérrez or Benítez, who have got to know how to do well in those fights, and we're also bringing a nice group for the mountains with Durán and Valls, who will be trying to do well."