Team Lampre is concluding its training camp in San Vincenzo (Toscana), Italy this week. Part of the Italian ProTour Team will leave to race the Giro della Provincia di Grosseto (February 15 to 17), while the others will close out the camp – based at the Hotel Riva degli Etruschi – on Sunday, February 17.
Alessandro Ballan, Matteo Bono, Paolo Bossoni, Paolo Fornaciari, Francesco Gavazzi, Danilo Napolitano, Daniele Righi and Mauro Santambrogio will leave for Massa Marittima and the Grosseto roads this Thursday; they will be guided by Fabrizio Bontempi.
"It's a perfect race for the beginning of the season," Bontempi explained. "There are three stages characterised by mixed parcours with flat finales; I think there will be two sprints and one breakaway.
"Our cyclists will try to improve their fitness and fight for the victory when the chance presents itself."
The days at the Hotel Riva degli Etruschi were marked by the late night doping controls, ordered by the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI). The tests all returned normal results, but it ruffled the feathers of the Lampre riders and the Association of Italian professional riders (ACCPI). Team members were not in their exact location when the testing officials arrived; Ballan himself requested a meeting with head CONI anti-doping prosecutor, Ettore Torri, to clear his position.
