Contract news and rumours continue to swirl
After three seasons with the Katusha team, a fit that seemed natural given his Russian nationality plus the team’s origins, Vladimir Karpets is on the move. L’Equipe reported on Tuesday that the 30 year old former Tour de Suisse winner is heading to Team Movistar, returning to the structure he competed with before when it was entitled iBanesto, then Caisse d’Epargne.
Karpets will hope that the move helps him return to past glories. In addition to his Tour de Suisse result in 2007, he also won the Volta Catalunya that same year plus the best young rider award in the 2004 Tour de France.
His initial time with the team was productive, the Russian placing second overall in the Tour de Romandie and 12th overall in the Tour de France in 2009. Last year he was fourth in the Tour de Romandie and went on to net 14th in the Giro and 13th in the Vuelta.
This season has been much quieter, thought, even if he did finish 13th on the time trial stage in the Tour de Romandie.
The new deal is reported as being for two years.
Meanwhile the newspaper also states that his current team-mate Danilo Di Luca is searching for a contract. He is talking to several teams at the ProTeam and Pro Contental team level including, it is reported, French squads. The Italian rider returned from a lengthy ban and clocked up a small handful of solid results, including fourth on a stage of the Giro d’Italia. Two weeks ago he was tenth in the Tre Valli Varesine.