Continuing to add riders prior to step up to Professional Continental level
Building towards a 2011 spent racing as a Professional Continental squad, Team Type 1 has added another European to its roster for next season.
Former Spanish road race champion Ivan Melero will compete with the American team, moving from the Burgos 2016 – Castilla y Leon squad. This season he placed third in the Vuelta Ciclista a la Communidad de Madrid and previously won stage eight of the Circuito Montanes.
Directeur sportif Vassili Davidenko believes that the 27 year old is going to make a difference to the team. “Ivan is a good all-rounder for stage races and understands the pace of European races,” he explained. “He’s going to help us in the multi-day events and we hope will find himself with a free hand to bring in some podiums for the team next year.”
Melero’s name is one which will be known to historians of the sport as his father Carlos took a stage in the 1977 Vuelta a España. Ivan became national junior champion in 2011, the same year his brother Oscar began a two-year pro career. He himself graduated to the pro ranks in 2005, placed second on a stage of the Tour de l’Avenir in 2006, and has raced with the Andalucia – Paul Versan, Orbea and Burgos 2016 teams.
The team is expanding its race programme next season and will be based in both Italy and Atlanta. It has made a number of good signings in recent months, including former world time trial championship runner-up and ten-time Hungarian national TT champion Laszlo Bodrogi, Swiss time trial champion Rubens Bertogliati and the Russian climber Alexander Efimkin.
The goal of the team is to raise awareness of Type 1 diabetes, and five of the 2011 lineup have the disease
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The roster for 2011 is as follows:
Laszlo Bodrogi – FRA
Daniele Callegarin – ITA
Alessandro Bazzana – ITA
Alexander Efimkin – RUS
Jure Kocjan – SLO
Andrea Grendene- ITA
Rubens Bertogliati – SUI
Olaf Kerkhof – NED-T1*
Aldo Ino Ilesic – SLO
Alexey Schmidt – RUS
Martijn Verschoor – NED-T1*
Scott Stewart – USA
Valeriy Kobzarenko – UKR
Javier Megias Leal – ESP-T1*
Will Dugan – USA
Fabio Calabria – AUS
Joe Eldridge – USA-T1*
Kiel Reijnen – USA
Ben King – AUS
Alex Bowden – USA-T1*
* = Type 1 diabetic