Roman Kreuziger – Unofficial
The race starts with an opening 13-kilometer time trial and the final stage finishes at atop Madonna di Campiglio. “I haven’t raced for a long time but I´ve trained well. This is why I really look forward to getting back to racing,” said Roman who returned from a high altitude training camp on Tenerife and pre-rode one of the key Giro stages with the Monte Zoncolan.“It was new experience for me and I must say that I have never seen such complicated climbs. Especially the final one with the finish on the Zoncolan is really nasty. Not only because of its length but also because of its profile. Plus it is awfully steep,” he revealed. “In the end we covered about 80 kilometers of this hard stage. We just didn’t check out the last kilometer because there was still snow up there and we had to go downhill from the penultimate climb. There is still a thick layer of snow near the finish. The organizers have already begun clearing the roads of snow so that we could ride up there,” Roman added.He is not going to set any particular goals for the Trentino. “First and foremost, I want to get into the racing rhythm. The race begins with a flat time trial that I have been focusing on recently. I did a couple of tests and I think we can be happy with the results. Everything is going as planned. In any case, I lack the racing rhythm and we will see how it goes. I hope to be getting better every day and I´m curious to know what the outcome will be,” added the Astana´s leader who is going to participate in this race for the second time in his career. “When I rode over there for first time with the Liquigas team I had just recovered from sickness so I was under no pressure,” Roman recalls.The Astana´s line-up: Roman Kreuziger (Cze), Paolo Tiralongo (Ita), Francesco Masciarelli (Ita), Jevgenij Petrov (Rus), Robert Kiserlovski (Cro), Tanel Kangert (Est), Maxim Gurov (Kaz), Joseph Jufre (Spa).
