Footon-Servetto's Fuji SSTs are hard to miss with their gleaming gold paint jobs. (Image credit: James Huang)
Fuji Bicycles confirmed today that it will continue to sponsor Mauro Gianetti's professional squad, which becomes Geox-TMC in 2011. The company signed a "multi-year agreement" with the team after supporting Footon-Servetto in 2010 and as co-title sponsor with Servetto in 2009.
Fuji will also supply the Geox-TMC organization's women's team, which will operate as Diadora-Pasta Zara, as well as a Belgian-American amateur squad (in 2010 the Fuji Test Team) which will serve as the ProTour team's satellite program.
Pat Cunnane, President of Advanced Sports International, parent company of Fuji Bicycles, said in a statement, "The power racing in the ProTour has clearly been a major benefit to our brands (Fuji and Oval Concepts), as well as to our suppliers' brands.
"We've shown our products can survive the rigors and punishment of the Tour de France, the Tour of Flanders and other major races under some of the best riders in the world and because of that we have gained immense credibility."
The Geox-TMC pro squad and amateur team will be riding Fuji 's new ultralight road bike, the Altamira, while Diadora-Pasta Zara will be racing on Fuji 's new women's-specific carbon road model, the Supreme. All three teams will race on Fuji's D-6 time trial bike.
Gianetti is chasing an extension of the team's ProTour license, and has signed 2008 Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre and 2005 & 2007 Vuelta a España and 2009 Giro d'Italia winner Denis Menchov toward that end. The team's status for 2011 will be decided in late November.
The women's team, led by team president Maurizio Fabretti, signed Americans Mara Abbot, winner of the 2010 Giro d'Italia Femminile and Shelley Evans, U.S. National Criterium Champion. as well as Russian Olga Zabelinskaya and Italian Eleonora Patuzzo, the junior world champion in 2007.
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The international amateur squad will be directed by Bernard Moerman, and includes former USA-military Champion Ian Holt, Peter Horn (USA), Aaron Pool (USA), Finland's U23 champion Paavo Paajanen, Anthony Louis (Fra), Arne Casier (Bel) and Thomas VanHaecke (Bel).
