Nippo-Vini Fantini present 2015 roster in Italy

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Italian-Japanese Professional Continental team Nippo-Vini Fantini presented their 2015 roster Saturday in Ortona, Italy, to about 500 guests, including 2014 Tour de France winner Vincenzo Nibali. The Astana team leader was on hand to wish good luck to his brother Antonio, who is making his professional debut with the new-look Italian Professional Continental team.

Also at the presentation was Italian national coach Davide Cassani, who spoke about some of the promising young Italians on the team, including Iuri Filosi and Nicolas Marini. Other guests included Valentino Sciotti for Farnese Vini, Cristiano De Rosa and Mizushima Kazunori, chairman and representative director of NIPPO Corporation.Team Manager Francesco Pelosi introduced the three directors: Hiroshi Daimon, team manager, Stefano Giuliani, technical Director, and Mario Manzoni, sports director. The directors in turn presented Nippo-Vini Fantini's 16-rider roster led by team captain Damiano Cunego.

The Nippo-Vini Fantini has a new blue and orange jersey for the 2015 season and hopes to secure a wild card invitation to the Giro d'Italia. RCS Sport is expected to reveal the five wild card squads on Wednesday.

Pelosi has promised that the Nippo-Vini Fantini riders will reveal details of their UCI Biological Passport by agreeing to take screenshots of their personal data. 

Nippo-Vini Fantini 2015 roster:
Giacomo Berlato, Alessandro Bisolti, Daniele Colli, Damiano Cunego, Pierpaolo De Negri, Yuri Filosi, Eduard Grosu, Manabu Ishibashi, Shiki Kuroeda, Alessandro Malaguti, Nicolas Marini, Antonio Nibali, Mattia Pozzo, Riccardo Starcchiotto, Antonio Viola, Genki Yamamoto.