Tinkoff announces 2008 line-up

By Susan Westemeyer

Tinkoff Credit Systems has announced its line-up for the upcoming season. The Italian team and its Russian sponsor will once again have 19 riders for its second year as a Professional Continental team, but the big names with which it started last season have all disappeared. Danilo Hondo is serving his doping-related suspension, while Tyler Hamilton and Jörg Jaksche were dismissed during the season after being linked to Operación Puerto's Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes.

Returning to the team are Mikhail Ignatiev, Evgeni Petrov, Ricardo Serrano, Daniele Contrini, Ilya Chertnetsky, Ivan Rovny, Nikolai Trusov, Pavel Brutt, Alexander Serov, Vasil Kiryienka, and Sergey Klimov. They will be joined by Alberto Loddo, Luca Mazzanti, Alexander Gottfried, Nikita Eskov, Bernardo Riccio, Alexander Khatuntsev, Walter Pedraza and Yuhaen Sobal.

The team had a number of wins this season, with Ignatiev having five of them, including the Trofeo Laigueglia and stage wins in the Ster Elektrotoer, Tour Méditerranéen, Vuelta Ciclista a Burgos, and the Regio Tour. Other wins for the team include the GP Chiasso, the mountains classification in Tirreno-Adriatico, the overall win in the Circuit de Lorraine, and stage wins in the Tour of Britain, Tour de l'Avenir, Circuit de Lorraine, Tour of Georgia and the Tour de Langkawi.