Lampre-Merida have been going through a period of transition, struggling for results outside of Italy and plagued by the ongoing Mantova scandal. As a result there has been a large turnaround of riders and staff over the past two seasons and an emphasis has been placed on recruiting talented young riders. The highest profile signing was that of World Champion Rui Costa who brings his Rainbow Jersey to the Italian based team. The 27 year old Portuguese rider will lead the team at the Tour de France, finally getting his opportunity to test himself as a leader in a three-week race. Costa is a strong all-round GC rider, he climbs very well, descends well, tests well against the clock, while also having a good enough kick to win and the savvy to know when to use it. Costa joined Caisse d’Epargne (now Movistar) in 2009, after being runner-up in the 2008 Tour de l’Avenir; his five seasons with the Spanish team saw a steady rise in his performances and results. In 2011 he won the GP de Montreal and a stage at the Tour de France, in 2012 he won a stage and the overall at the Tour de Suisse. Costa took another step forward in 2013, winning two stages and the overall at the Tour de Suisse, two Tour de France stages and the World Championship. While giving Lampre a strong presence at the Tour is the ultimate goal for 2014, Costa has spoken of his desire to start the season well, possibly aiming for success in Paris-Nice or the Ardennes.
The Giro is always going to be a major goal for Lampre-Merida, and having lost Michele Scarponi the team will turn to former winner Damiano Cunego and the veteran Polish climber Przemyslaw Niemiec, to provide a substantial GC presence. Cunego won the Giro back in 2004 but since then his career has been marked by inconsistency, with most of his successes coming prior to 2009. Notable results in the last three seasons include 6th place finishes at the Giro (2012) and Tour (2011), stage wins in the Tour de Romandie (2011) and Giro del Trentino (2012), and winning the KoM Jersey in last season’s Tirreno-Adriatico. Having primarily worked as a domestique for Scarponi in the previous two editions of the Giro, Niemiec finally got a chance to ride with more freedom in 2013, finishing 6th overall. Another rider who is slated to ride the Giro is Diego Ulissi, one of the rising stars of Italian cycling and a potential future Grand Tour contender. For now though, Ulissi is focused on seeking stage wins and attacking the one-day races, such as the Ardennes Classics and the hilly races that dot the Italian Calendar. Colombian climber Winner Anacona, 25, showed plenty of potential when he was a stage winner and runner-up in the 2011 Girobio, however an off-season injury after his neo-pro season effectively derailed his 2013 campaign. It will be interesting to see how he does in 2014, after returning in 2013 Anacona got a fair bit of racing under his belt, so he should be back to full strength for the start of this new campaign. Lampre-Merida will support those riders with domestiques such as climbers Jose Serpa, Rafael Valls Ferri and the talented neo-pro Jan Polanc, and more punchy riders like Kristijan Durasek, Manuele Mori and young Luca Wackermann. Losing time trial specialist and super strong rider Adriano Malori is definitely a blow, and while Nelson Oliveira is a similar style of rider he hasn’t had the same calibre of results. Even so Oliveira should prove to be a useful addition to the team and will likely be deployed as an engine to help Costa, while being given the leeway to seek his own results against the clock. Twenty three year old Mattia Cattaneo won the Girobio in 2011 and finished 3rd in the Tour de l’Avenir in both 2011 and 2012. A naturally gifted stage race rider, Cattaneo is a strong climber and shows promise against the clock. Cattaneo’s neo-pro season was cut short by injury and a health scare; thankfully he has recovered and should have the chance to show more of his talent in his second season, he certainly looks to have a good future.
Stage win woes?
Lampre-Merida began 2013 with some optimism about their prospects in the sprints, they still had the veteran Alessandro Petecchi and had signed 2012 Giro stage winner Roberto Ferrari. However Petacchi quit the team in April and Ferrari struggled to land a breakthrough result, ultimately finishing the season winless. That’s not to suggest Ferrari was poor throughout, he wasn’t, but his inability to make any notable impact in the sprints during the Giro was a definite disappointment. It was also uncharacteristic, in his previous two appearances Ferrari had eight top 5 sprint finishes, so to fail to land one with Lampre-Merida was surprising. Ferrari may not have won in 2013 but he did finish on the podium three times in World Tour sprint finishes, and was 5th in three bunch sprints during the Tour de France, including in Paris. Ferrari will hope that 2014 proves to be a little kinder and getting an early win could be significant. To give themselves more options the team have added 26 year old sprinter Sacha Modolo. Modolo has has plenty of success at the Pro Continental level, with 24 victories in the last three seasons, but has yet to win at the World Tour level, coming closest with a 2nd place finish on the final stage of the 2013 Giro. Veteran Argentinean sprinter Maximiliano Richeze enjoyed plenty of success on the Asian Tour prior to returning to Europe with Lampre-Merida in 2013. As with Ferrari he failed to find a win, though he had a number of podium places including four during the Vuelta a Espana. Richeze has displayed good strength and the savvy to get into the mix to win stages, but he lacked the necessary top end speed to win bunch sprints in 2013 and may be best hunting for wins from more select groups or supporting faster finishers. Italians Davide Cimolai and Andrea Palini will likely serve as lead out men and support riders, but both have enough speed to earn some chances of their own. Elia Favilli is a good climbing fast man, a natural opportunistic sprinter who will be looking for more impressive results in his second season with the team. Last but definitely not least is Filippo Pozzato, a one-day specialist of some repute. A former winner of Milan-San Remo (2006), Pozzato also has 2nd place finishes in both Paris-Roubaix and Ronde vaan Vlaanderen to his credit. Pozzato was off the pace in the Classics and quiet for most of 2013, but victory in the GP Ouest France-Plouay rescued his season.
2014 outlook
Success for Lampre-Merida will likely come in the form of stage wins, possibly in some of the more prestigious one-day races, and also strong performances in the one-week stage races. They will absolutely be targeting the Giro, and with Ulissi aiming for stage wins alongside a few GC contenders they should be able to achieve something of note. Costa should be able to challenge for a top 5 finish in the Tour de France. Below I have included links to a number of interviews the cyclingmole conducted with Lampre-Merida riders.
Follow @oglalakevRelated Articles
http://rowery.org/2014/01/13/przemyslaw-niemiec-aims-to-repeat-2013-season-success/
http://cyclingmole.com/2013/12/25/25-riders-to-watch-in-2014-diego-ulissi/
http://cyclingmole.com/2014/01/06/interview-with-davide-cimolai/
http://cyclingmole.com/2014/01/04/my-interview-with-luca-wackermann/
http://cyclingmole.com/2014/01/02/interview-with-sacha-modolo/
http://cyclingmole.com/2013/12/31/an-interview-with-mattia-cattaneo/
http://cyclingmole.com/2013/12/03/25-riders-to-watch-in-2014-jan-polanc/
http://cyclingmole.com/2013/12/28/we-believe-in-ulissi-till-the-death-says-lampre-ds-matxin/
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