Management tries to keep the team motivated.
The ISD-Neri team had hoped to be riding the Giro d’Italia this year, as it did in 2009, yet despite the victory of José Rujano in the Tour de Langkawi and his stated goal of winning the Italian Tour, it was passed over by the race organisers.
Losing out on the expected wildcard entry has meant that the team has a large chunk missing from its racing calendar. Team management will instead hold a two-week training camp, with one focus in mind: helping its riders to win the various national championships, including the Italian road race title. In some ways, this would send out a signal that they should have been invited to the Grand Tour.
“[Team manager] Luca Scinto has not lowered his guard, but he gave the guys some days of relaxation at home after the confirmation of exclusion from Tour of Italy 2010,” said the team in a statement. “All the riders returned home last week, to spend some days with their families, but at the end of next week, they must be in San Baronto again, for a camp of 15 days. The sporting directors want all the riders to be near the headquarters to prepare for the National Championships, the next big goals of the team.”
Former Italian champion Giovanni Visconti took his victory in 2007 and is determined to once again wear the Maglia Tricolore. He triumphed three years ago when he outsprinted Paolo Bossoni (Lampre-Fondital) and Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner), and knows that topping the podium again would make some ask why he didn’t get a chance in the Giro.
Last month, the 27 year old showed strong form when he won two stages plus the overall classification in the Tour of Turkey. Motivated, he is due to ride the championship course in Treviso in the next few days. He will be accompanied there by team-mate Oscar Gatto, who is from the area.
The team underlines that the Italian championship is not the only one of importance. It said that it wants to target the Polish time trial title with Bartoz Hudarski and the Russian TT with Maxim Belkov. As a team that is partly Ukrainian, partly Italian, it will chase wins in both the road and time trial titles in the Ukraine. Ruslan Pidgornyy, Denys Kostyuk, Oleksandr Kvachuk and Dmytro Krivtsov will be main hopes there.
Essentially, what the team is trying to do is to re-motivate its riders and set new goals. Missing out on the Giro was a big blow, particularly for a team which only enters that Grand Tour. It wants to both underline that it should have been there, and also to land results in other races which will justify the backing it gets from its sponsors.