Daniele Bennati to ride along Fabian Cancellara at the classics
Daniele Bennati will be seen in action at cobbled classics in the season ahead as he missed the event because of an injury last year. He will ride for the new squad, Team RadioShack-Nissan-Trek, in 2012 and is determined to support Fabian Cancellara.
The cyclist had a splendid 2011 season as he won the stage 1 and stage 20 of the Vuelta a Espana 2011.
Bennati won the 3rd stage of Tour de Wallonie, along with the stage 8 victory at the Tour of Austria.
He finished 3rd overall at the Tour of Qatar after an early finish to his classics season, with a second place finish at Wevelgem.
The 31-year-old told Cyclingnews, “Last year, I didn’t ride the cobbled classics because I didn’t want to risk the Achilles tendon injury that I had on the pave, Cance [Cancellara] already wanted me to be there with him last season for the classics, and
this time around, I’ve said ‘Cance, I’m with you for the cobbled classics, and I really want to help you win your races’”.
Danielle concluded his classics season early on as he was keen to participate at the Giro d’ Italia 2011.
He secured three stage wins, stage 3, stage 9 and stage 12, as well as the overall point’s classification victory during his last appearance at the Giro back in 2008.
The Italian was unfortunate at the Giro d’ Italia 2011 as a broken collarbone ruled him out of the home grand tour.
He has high hopes for the Italian grand tour in 2012, along with the Tour de France in the coming season.
Bennati also briefed that the Tour de France will be an ideal chance to prepare for the London Olympics. He expressed that he will ensure maximum availability for the team in the 2012 season.
“If I’m useful to the team’s cause in some way, I would like to be there but it’s also clear that it’s something bigger than me and bigger than what I want,” he stated.
Daniele Bennati also mentioned the fact that the merger of Leopard Trek and RadioShack has resulted in a very strong line-up of RadioShack-Nissan-Trek.
Ben Hermans, Andreas Kloden, Andy and Frank Schleck, Fabian Cancellara, Jakob Fuglsang, Daniele Bennati and Maxime Monfort are some of the top guns in RadioShack-Nissan armoury for 2012.
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