Off to Sicily to pre-ride a Giro stage

“From Thursday I will be practicing at high altitudes. I opted for Sicily so I could pre-ride a Giro stage with the finish on top of Mount Etna,” Roman revealed. “Apart from that, it will be a typical training camp. I will be staying there until 14th February and then I will head straight to Portugal for the first stage race – the Tour de Algarve,” he said. “I know that there should be ten of us including Tiralongo, Kesiakoff and Fefonov. It is a sort of random mix of riders, some of them will ride with me at the Giro,” revealed Roman who also added that his co-captain Vinokurov will race at the Tour of Oman at that time.”We put in a number of long training sessions in Spain and this training camp on Sicily will be a little bit different,” said Roman who enjoyed the Friday’s team presentation. “We showed the complete team line-up and even the guys who had raced in Australia at the Tour Down Under made it there. I got on the stage next to last before Vino. Even the president of the Kazakh Cycling Federation was present and, by chance, he was celebrating his birthday that day. It was a great show with no long speeches.”After his return to Italy, he could not miss watching on TV Zdenek Štybar’s ride for the gold at the Cyclo-cross World Championships in Sankt Wendel. “I didn’t get to see it live but I got the news right after the finish. All I have to say is that he pulled off an excellent job and deserved to win. I texted him my congrats right away,” Roman added.