Former Tour de France mountains jersey winner Michael Rasmussen was tipped to be heading to the AMPO Contentpolis team in 2010, but the jump of the first sponsor to the Footon Servetto squad appears to have torpedoed the other team’s future. With it, the chances of Rasmussen heading there also evaporated.
The Dane is now being linked to Team Miche, with various media reports saying that he is due to ride the Vuelta a San Luis with it. If true, it is unclear if he will remain with the team throughout 2010 or if he will be in its colours only for the January 18 – 24 event.
The 35 year old is a double winner of the Tour de France’s polka-dot jersey, and looked set to win the race in 2007 until he was expelled by his Rabobank team. He had lied about his whereabouts before the event, thus frustrating out of competition monitoring of him. The resulting media furore put more and more pressure on Rabobank, who finally withdrew him from the race.
He incurred a two year ban and returned to racing earlier this year, finishing second in a criterium in Kjellerup in Denmark, then winning a stage plus the overall classification in the Vuelta a Puebla in Mexico. He was also first in the prologue of the Vuelta Chihuahua Internacional there, second on stage four and sixth overall.
Several big teams are due to compete in the Vuelta a San Luis, including ProTour teams Katusha, Liquigas and Footon-Servetto. According to Wielerland.nl, Katusha is bringing big-name riders Filippo Pozzato and Danilo Napolitano to the race, while Liquigas will send Vincenzo Nibali and Francesco Chicchi.