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Last Updated: 14 Oct 2020 - 12:47:15 PM |
Tour of Ireland completes teams line up
By Gerry McManus, Press Officer
2 Aug 2007,
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Teams for Tour of Ireland have now been finalised with the announcement that Rabobank, DFL-Cyclingnews and Team Maxbo Bianchi complete the 16 team line up for the inaugural tour 22nd to 26th August sponsored by Failte Ireland.
Sven Nys is the elder statesman of the Rabobank team at the age of 31. Nys is better known for his exploits in the cyclo-cross discipline of the sport. In 2005 the Belgian international won the world cyclo-cross championships, the Superprestige race series and was ranked as the world number one in that discipline.
Nys is not the only Rabobank rider with a world championship gold medal. Last year Boy Van Poppel added the junior world cyclo-cross championships gold to the Dutch national gold he had already won that year. The 18-year-old talented youngster is son of the famous sprinter Jean-Paul Van Poppel who excited race fans with his explosive sprinting efforts during his successful racing career where he won ten stages of the Tour de France, nine in the Tour of Spain and four in the Giro D'Italia.
Team Maxbo Bianchi are a relatively new Norweigan team founded in 2005. The team has already achieved some good results with Edvald Boasson Hagen taking victory in the 2.2 ranked five-day Ringerike GP in June. 19-year-old Hagen had already shown his sprinting talents when he won three stages of the Tour de l'Avenir last year as part of the Norway national team and has already been snatched up by T-Mobile for 2008. The team won triple gold in the Norweigan national championships this year. Alexander Kristoff won the men's road race championship after he beat Thor Hushovd (Credit-Agricole) in the sprint after 220km of racing. Hagen had already won the men's TT championship and Joachim Bohler took the men's criterium championship.
DFL / Cyclingnews -Litespeed has a number of riders that could be team leader on the Irish tour. Daniel Lloyd overcame altitude difficulties in the Tour of Qinghai Lake this month and finished in second place after nine gruelling stages. Lloyd wore the race leaders yellow jersey going into the final stage and lost by the narrowest margin of one second. Evan Oliphant confirmed his form taking the Scottish Road Race Championship this year. The 25-year-old has tour experience in Langkawi and Wellington and the Edinburgh man has shown he can ride tactically after taking victories in the British Cycling Premier Calendar and Criterium series events in previous years. The young team will be steered by the wise head of Nico Mattan. The 36-year-old former Mapei, Cofidis and Davitamon-Lotto professional is the former winner of Gent-Wevelgem, GP Plouay and two stages of Paris-Nice.
The five-day Tour of Ireland has gained additional world-wide TV exposure. Race organisers have received confirmation that the event will get now get TV coverage in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Russia.
DFL-Cyclingnews.com-Litespeed
Sven De Weerdt
Daniel Fleeman
Daniel Lloyd
Nico Mattan
Jens Mouris
Evan Oliphant
Jeremy Vennell
Team Maxbo Bianchi
Edvald Boasson Hagen
Alexander Kristoff
Lars Petter Nordhaug
Gabriel Rasch
Stian Sommerseth
Joachim Bohler
Frederik Willman
Rabobank
Martijn Maaskant
Thomas Berkhout
Martijn Keizer
Sven Nys
Tom Veelers
Dennis Van Winden
Boy Van Poppel
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Press release 23rd July 2007
Team LPR and Plowman Craven /Evans Cycles sign up for the Tour of Ireland
Race organisers The Events Group today announced the entry of Team LPR and Plowman Craven / Evans for the forthcoming professional cycling Tour of Ireland sponsored by Failte Ireland August 22nd to 26th.
Team LPR Brakes is a Swiss registered Professional Continental team with a strong squad of experienced professionals and promising young talent. The team management has provisionally confirmed the seven man entry as Roger Beuchat, Borut Bozic, Marco Marcato, Samuele Marzoli, Allesandro Maserati, Narenzo Rossi and Roberto Traficanti. The young team will be steered by 35-year-old Swiss professional Beuchat. Beuchat has represented his country in four world championships and his tour experience comes from rides in the Tours of Romandy, Langkawi, Italy and Switzerland. His former teams include Swiss Post, Phonak and Barloworld. Bozic and Marzoli are also no strangers to tour riding after they finished second and third respectively in the final stage of the 2.1 ranked Tour of Slovenia this year.
The Plowman Craven/Evans Cycles team entry comes on the back of successes this year in Great Britain. The team has already won three national titles including the men's national criterium championship. New Zealander Gordon McCauley won two top money town centre criteriums in July and Tony Gibb beat a top class field to claim victory in the Premier Series Blackpool GP road race. Former world track cycling silver medallist Gibb out-sprinted the quality field that included Liquigas professional Magnus Backstedt.
Plowman Craven / Evans took a major step forward this year when they registered as a Professional Continental cycling team and this is the first time they will have competed in a 2.1 ranked tour. McCauley has represented New Zealand at the Commonwealth games and the world road race championships. The experience of the 35-year-old former New Zealand road race and time trial champion will be useful at this new level for the team.
Simon Barnes, team founder and boss of Hertfordshire based Geomatics company Plowman Craven, is delighted the team have been given the opportunity to race in Ireland. Barnes is himself a former racing cyclist who rode in the Raleigh/Dunlop Tour of Ireland in the 1970's.
"This is a fantastic opportunity for Plowman Craven / Evans Cycles to really show what we can do," said Barnes: "We've won two British Cycling Premier Calendar events with Simon Gaywood and Tony Gibb this year. Gordon McCauley has also been up there in every race and all three will be riding in Ireland. It will be an incredible experience for the guys, as it was for me riding in Ireland back in the 1970's."
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