Report card: Cannondale Pro Cycling

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Incredible Hulk: Peter Sagan set the Tour alight with three stage wins and the green jersey win(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)

When the Cannondale Team was officially presented in Los Angeles on Saturday, it marked the end of the team's sponsorship by the Italian Liquigas company and the start of a new, more American, more international team, with Cannondale as the lead, and for now, the only main sponsor.

The team will still have a green jersey, Italian management and 14 Italian riders (out of 28) in its roster but Liquigas has terminated its sponsorship after 15 years in professional cycling. The bottled gas company has managed its own team since 2005 and its riders have won over 200 races, including two victories at the Giro d'Italia and one at the Vuelta a España. It is the end of an era and the loss of an important Italian sponsor for cycling.

Sagan lets slip a slight smile whenever he is asked about Merckx. He perhaps knows he will never go on to dominate Grand Tour stage races but he does share the Cannibal's hunger and determination when he smells a chance of success. He won a stage at the Tour of Oman in February and kept winning all the way until August, when he then cleaned up and took home a pile of cash from a string of post-Tour de France criteriums. He may have missed an opportunity to win the world title in the Netherlands and perhaps stumbled in the Classics due to tactical mistakes and inexperience but Sagan was without doubt one of the major revelations of 2012.

The Moser surname is legendary in cycling, representing a dynasty of successful riders. Moreno Moser is the latest of the family from the Dolomites and proved he has the class of his famous uncle Francesco, by winning the Trofeo Laigueglia, Rund um den Finanzplatz Eschborn- Frankfurt and the overall classification of the Tour of Poland in his first full season as a professional. He was also second in the GP de Montréal and a team leader for Italy at the world championships, convincing the Italian tifosi that he will become the next great classics rider.

Nibali also played his part in Liquigas-Cannondale's success in 2012. The Sicilian from Messina won Tirreno-Adriatico ahead of Chris Horner and then was the only rival to Team Sky at the Tour de France, finishing third behind Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome. Despite agreeing to his huge new contract Nibali accepted a heavy race programme and also won the Giro di Padania in September and even rode Il Lombardia.

Nibali was considered Ivan Basso's understudy until 2012 and the two shared the leadership in Grand Tours. However the results of 2012 proved that Nibali is on the rise, while Basso seems past his best. The two-time Giro d'Italia winner is now 35 and was the ghost of his former self at the 2012 Giro. He claims a mental block stopped him producing the power needed to be competitive in the final mountain stages. True to character, Basso fought on but was a distant fifth behind Ryder Hesjedal when the Giro d'Italia ended in Milan. He helped Nibali at the Tour de France when he could but limped to Paris in 25th place.

The team was unable to retain Duggan and his stars and stripes jersey and he surprisingly moved to Saxo-Tinkoff. Capecchi could have been the next Italian Grand Tour contender but he has moved to Movistar, along with hard working and highly loyal mountain domestique Sylvester Szmyd. Daniel Oss has also moved on, joining the BMC Racing Team, while Valerio Agnoli and Alessandro Vanotti will be Nibali's bodyguards at Astana.

Stephen is the most experienced member of the Cyclingnews team, having reported on professional cycling since 1994. He has been Head of News at Cyclingnews since 2022, before which he held the position of European editor since 2012 and previously worked for Reuters, Shift Active Media, and CyclingWeekly, among other publications.