body-container-line-1

Cycling: Lampre-Merida turn to Rui Costa for the Tour de France

By Allsports.com.gh
Cycling Cycling: Lampre-Merida turn to Rui Costa for the Tour de France
JUN 20, 2014 LISTEN

The 27-year-old Portuguese, who has claimed two podium positions on the International Cycling Union's (UCI) World Tour this year, has been named in Lampre-Merida's initial 11-man roster for the upcoming grand tour.

Costa finished second in the Paris-Nice and third in the Tour de Romandie, while he won last year's UCI Road World Championships road race in a sprint ahead of Spain's Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha).

Lampre-Merida team manager Brent Copeland has pledged the Italian outfit will give Costa all the support he needs to challenge for general classification (GC) honours in the Tour de France, which starts in July.

"It is the most important race in the world and this year Lampre-Merida line up with GC ambitions," Copeland told Tuttobiciweb .

"We will try to do well and we want to get the best possible result. In particular we want to see how far our world champion Rui Costa can go as he will test himself in a three-week race against the best riders in the world.

"We must bring the best possible team and everybody knows that they have to arrive at this race in top condition and with the right mentality. We will evaluate each of them on their physical condition and what they have done in the season so far. One thing is certain; no one has a guaranteed spot."

Lampre-Merida will cull their 11-man roster to nine after the Tour of Slovenia, which finishes on Sunday.

The initial list includes Costa and Chris Horner as GC contenders with the latter initially earmarked for the Giro d'Italia only for a training crash to derail his plans in April.

Horner was hit by a car while riding through a tunnel in Italy and is making his return to racing in Slovenia.

Sacha Modolo looks set to be Lampre-Merida's number one sprinter, while Jose Serpa, Nelson Oliveira, Kristijan Durasek and Rafael Valls are likely to be the main domestiques for Costa.

Matteo Bono, Filippo Pozzato, Maximiliano Richeze and Davide Cimolai have also been included on the preliminary roster.

body-container-line