-Gianni Moscon wins the Piccolo Lombardia
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| Italian amateur races seem to have the best finish line pictures (Photo:Italiaciclismo) |
With 55 kilometers to go over the Madonna di Ghisallo, the race had a defining breakaway of 18 including 4 Zalf riders (Moscon, Garosio, Tonelli, Berlato), 3 BMC riders (Teuns, Vliegen and Vermeulen) and others including Pierre-Roger Latour (Chambery), Dan Pearson (Zappi's) and more. Teuns and Moscon attacked on the Villa Vergano climb and with 21 kilometers to go, they had an 11 second gap on Latour. The duo up front worked well together and Latour never quite got on terms and in the finale, it was a confident Moscon who overhauled Teuns while Latour came in 8 seconds down. The chasing group was led in by a Chambery CF 1-2 in Nans Peters and Francois Bidard, making it a 3-4-5 for Chambery on the day.
Moscon, only a 2nd year U23, capped off a great year with his 2nd win of the year and his first major win. Moscon was all over the top 10 in one-day races with top finishes in the Giro del Belvedere (6th), Palio del Recioto (9th), Vittorio Veneto (1st), Coppa della Pace (8th), Citta di Felino (2nd), GP Poggiana (5th), GP Capodarco (2nd) to go along with his win here. He was chasing a streaking Brayan Ramirez in the World Championships when he slid out in a corner and lost any hope of an upset victory.
Zalf took their 51st victory of the year. They took their 52nd a bit later in the afternoon with Nicola Toffali and Eugert Zhupa leading the 1-2 for Zalf in the Coppa San Vito. Well actually it was a 1-2-4-5-6-7 with only Christian Grazian spoiling the party since he got into the breakaway. They won't equal their record haul of 59 from last year but it is by no means a down year for the Venetian squad.
For Dylan Teuns, this is just an re-affirmation of his awesome season and a sign of things to come in the pro ranks. The same goes for Latour. Perhaps this is a podium we could see in the future.
Other racing news...
-Speaking of Zalf-Euromobil wins, Giacomo Berlato won the Ruota d'Oro earlier this week. Berlato broke away from Russian Roman Kustadinchev, the guy who featured prominently off the front for nearly all of the race at the U23 Worlds
Team and Transfer News
-Giant-Shimano Development Team is kaput. The team, which will be known as Giant-Alpecin next year, is moving away from the development team method in favor of having testing camps, where riders will come in and test with the team and see if they have what it takes. The riders currently under contract will be taken care of, apparently, "so they can continue their cycling career and help them take the next step in their development." Little Lars van der Haar will move to the World Tour team for 2015 but will still focus 100% on cyclocross.
The team was a nice announcement last year but the results were very slim this year for the squad with many rider's development being stunted with injury including Frederik Ludvigsson and Mathias Rask while others just simply didn't produce.
Full press release here.
-Team Stölting is not going Pro Continental for 2015. After being talked about for months, the team manager Jochen Hahn sheepishly admitted that the "talks' with potential sponsors didn't develop past that. Meanwhile, Phil Bauhaus is off to Team BORA for the next 2 years while Christian Mager, who was very strong this spring and in the Giro della Valle d'Aosta, signed with CULT Energy. Silvio Herklotz is still set to stay on the team for 2015 but after a strong spring and a so-so summer, he is going to need to take the reigns, take the next step in his progression and lead the team.
-Yoeri Havik is the 5th rider unofficially announced for the SEG Racing team in 2015. The quick Dutchman won the Antwerpse Havenpijl this year and is an aspiring classics man.
-Nicolas Marini, Giacomo Berlato and Antonio Nibali are reportedly headed to the Pro Continental hopeful Vini Fantini-Nippo team that will include the likes of Damiano Cunego and Elia Favilli. I think I will write a larger article on this because well...I don't know if they made the right picks here and I want to look at the Italian transfer market as more of a whole. Until then...
Other recent transfers include...
-U23 Worlds TT rider Campbell Flakemore, Italian Manuel Senni and American Joey Rosskopf all signed with BMC for 2015. They have been much talked about and will be joining previously announced riders Stefan Küng and Dylan Teuns. I hope these guys don't succumb to BMC-itis and get lost in a huge team with a lot of money for the next 2 years.
-Swiss climber Simon Pellaud signed with IAM Cycling. While obviously the team is focused on Swiss talent, he isn't half-bad in the hills and hard one-day races so I hope he doesn't get kicked in the gut too hard next year.
-Alexander Foliforov (Helicopters) moved to the step-father team of RusVelo for 2015. He is an enigma to me. He can climb so fucking brilliantly and then just drop off the planet the next day.
-Amaury Capiot, the son of 80-90s classics man Johan Capiot, is the latest youngster to sign with Topsport-Vlaanderen for 2015. Capiot walked in the steps of his father this spring by having top 10s in the Paris-Roubaix U23, GP Criquielion and Antwerpse Havenpijl as well as 5 top 10 sprints in the Carpathian Couriers Tour and 2nd in the sprint jersey. Topsport can be good for some and a swamp that some cannot escape but Capiot is one to watch in the grueling classics next spring to see if he has any of his father's brute strength that took him to 3 Brabantsje Pijls, 3 Le Samyn, 2 Het Volks and 1 Paris-Tours win.
-Timo Roosen to Team LottoNL
-Alexander Kamp and Mads Wurtz to QoloQuick
-Owain Doull, the British star on the road and track who won the Triptyque Monts et Chateaux this year, looks all set to join Europcar for 2015.
More news and notes in the coming days...
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