Total of 28 riders on Dutch team
This year’s Tour of Qatar winner Wouter Mol is one of three signings for the Vacansoleil-DCM lineup for 2011, further boosting a team which looks set to take some big results in the year ahead.
Mol landed the best result of his career last spring when he won the Gulf race ahead of some of the top names in the sport. He came down with the CMV virus later in the season and didn’t amass the results he had expected, but is fully recovered and raring to go. He has been offered an extended contract by the team and wants to clock up more big scalps.
Mol is joined in the 2011 lineup by 30-year old Santo Anzà, who won the Brixia Tour in 2008 and, as a first year professional, finished 10th in the Tour of Lombardy. Marcello Pavarin is the third of the signings and brings the team total to 28 riders. He turned pro in 2008.
All three have been given one year contracts and the team manager Daan Luijkx expects good things from them. “These riders are capable of racing in different kind of races. If you look at the current team and possible program the team needs riders who can help out the leaders in the big races. At other moments the riders have to be able to get a result themselves,” he said.
“In 2010 we had 19 out of 23 riders reaching at least one top-3 position, we want to keep that record.”
Including proven winners such as Riccardo Ricco, Johnny Hoogerland and Vuelta a España runner-up Ezequiel Mosquera, the team will feature strong blend of nationalities in 2011. There will be a total of 21 Dutch, Belgian and Italian riders.
Luijkx stressed this was coincidental. “We are happy to have strong groups from the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy but we didn’t look at nationality for these spots. The possible role of the riders in the group leaded us to these three riders. I am confident our group is well balanced as from the first race of the season.”
The team was given important ProTeam status for 2011, thus guaranteeing its participation in the top races in the sport.
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Vacansoleil – DCM ProTeam 2011:
Santo Anzà (Italy), Borut Bozic (Slovenia), Maxim Belkov (Russia), Matteo Carrara (Italiy), Thomas De Gendt (Belgium), Stijn Devolder (Belgium), Romain Feillu (France), Gorik Gardeyn (Belgium), Michal Golas (Poland), Johnny Hoogerland (The Netherlands), Martijn Keizer (The Netherlands), Sergey Lagutin (Uzbekistan), Björn Leukemans (Belgium), Pim Ligthart (The Netherlands), Marco Marcato (Italy), Wouter Mol (The Netherlands), Ezequiel Mosquera (Spain), Jens Mouris (The Netherlands), Alberto Ongarato (Italiy), Marcello Pavarin (Italy), Ruslan Pidgornyy (Ukraine), Wout Poels (The Netherlands), Riccardo Riccò (Italy), Rob Ruygh (The Netherlands), Mirko Selvaggi (Italy), Joost van Leijen (The Netherlands), Frederik Veuchelen (Belgium) and Lieuwe Westra (The Netherlands).