Italian hired to support classics team
Marco Bandiera is moving from the Katusha team over to the Belgian Quick Step squad. Patrick Lefevere has hired the Italian as a support rider for his classics faction, headed by Tom Boonen, according to sportdome.nl. Bandiera is the fifth Italian on the Belgian Quick Step team, after Francesco Chicchi, Dario Cataldo, Davide Malacarne and Francesco Reda.
Bandiera started his career as a trainee in the Lampre team in 2007. He stayed with Lampre until the end of 2009, then switched to the Katusha team. He is mostly a support rider, but has a few decent results for himself, such as the fourth place in the mountains classification of the 2008 Tour of Poland or a fourth place in the second stage of the 2009 Critérium du Dauphiné Libéré.