Rubens Bertogliati «The Playa de Palma Challenge is an ideal race to start the season»

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26 January 2015

IAM Cycling

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Less than a week after completing an eleven day training camp on Mallorca, thirteen IAM Cycling riders find themselves riding and racing over the same roads again.

Now their challenge is to do as well as the IAM Cycling riders who succeeded so well this past week at the Santos Tour Down Under. Rubens Bertogliati, their directeur sportif for the event, emphasizes that this particular event is unique in format.

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The Playa de Palma is a great way to start the season. There are four days of racing, but with different profile characteristics where we can field any eight riders of our choice according to the days route. This means that the sprinters will be raced for the first and the fourth stages while more versatile riders will fill out the squad for the second and third stages. Those are the two stages that will incorporate more climbing. Then the general classification is defined on the basis of the points earned over the four days.

Bertogliati has very much appreciated the great attitude his riders showed over the course of their training camp around the Palma area.

Since we can mix and match our daily squad for each stage of the Challenge, I am confident that all our riders will show proof of the excellent work we all did for more than ten days in camp. When I see how well the guys in Australia did, there is no reason to be pessimistic about our chances here. I spoke with the riders during the training camp and they did not hide their ambitions. The two goals of the sports management will be to confirm the strength and spirit of the team in setting up both the sprints as well as the climbs. Any podium results or even a victory will just be so much gravy.

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