Teams for Monte Paschi Eroica

More teams have announced their line-ups for the upcoming second edition of the Monte Paschi Eroica race in Italy, on Saturday, March 8. On the 181 km-course from Gaiole in Chianti to Siena, Italian squad Liquigas will file young promise Vincenzo Nibali as team captain. To support him, team manager Stefano Zanatta has chosen Maciej Bodnar, Francesco Chicchi, Alberto Curtolo, Mauro Da Dalto, Murilo Fischer, Matej Mugerli and Frederik Willems to participate in the event partly held on dirt roads.

German team Milram starts for the first time in the race, led by all-rounders Martin Müller and Enrico Poitschke. Directeur sportif Oscar Pellicioli will also look to Italians Marco Velo, Fabio Sabitini, Elia Rigotto and Alberto Ongarato.

"The race must be very special, from all that we have heard about it," said Müller. "Among other things it has 60 km of gravel roads and long, narrow forest passages. It sounds a bit like Paris-Roubaix. At any rate, such stretches are an important preparation for the upcoming races."

American Professional Continental squad Slipstream-Chipotle announced Magnus Backstedt, Steven Cozza, Michael Friedman, Will Frischkorn, Ryder Hesjedal, Martijn Maaskant, Kilian Patour and Chris Sutton to take the start in Gaiole.

Danish ProTour team CSC selected Kurt-Asle Arvesen, Lars Bak, Matti Breschel, Fabian Cancellara, Matthew Goss, Marcus Ljungqvist, Anders Lund and Stuart O'Grady.