Paolo Bettini requires “next four years” to stabilise the Italian National Team
Italian National Coach, Paolo Bettini has defended his team’s poor performance at the 2012 UCI Road World Championships in Limburg, Netherlands.
He has proposed a four-year project for the team which will help the Italian squad with developing good time trial and road race events.
"We're missing a finisher like Gilbert. In Italy the only real classics riders are Pozzato, Ballan and Gasparotto. But I couldn't select them,” he told Gazzetta dello Sport after the worlds.
“We've got to work with the young riders in future and believe in them”.
"We should have kept Nibali well placed but he shouldn't have attacked before Gilbert did”.
“Gatto should have been on Gilbert's wheel so that he could have replied to his attack. But he was 20th going into the Cauberg and was seventh over the top of the climb”.
“If we calculate that every bike is two metres long…," he concluded.
Paolo took over the team’s coaching two-years back and his performance has not been very promising, Italian cyclists has not secured even a single podium spot under his coaching.
There are absolutely no questions about Bettini’s abilities as he is ranked amongst the most successful road cyclists of his time.
The 38-year-old won the world title twice, in 2006 and 2007 and also managed to get his hands on the gold in 2004, Athens Olympics.
Italian cyclists struggled to finish even amongst the top-10 and Oscar Gatto was the most successful rider, claiming the 13th position at the 261 kilometre road race in Valkenburg.
The Belgian cycling sensation, Philippe Gilbert took over the gold after showing some serious cycling skills to complete the race in 6 hours, 10 minutes and 41 seconds.
Edvald Boasson Hagen of Norway and Alejandro Valverde of Spain finished at the second and the third positions with John Degenkolb and Lars Boom occupying the fourth and the fifth positions respectively.
Vincenzo Nibali was leading the Italian team at the race and despite having a terrific season, Nibali struggled to get his guts together and could not secure and better than the 29th overall position.
The Italian side rode with numerous young cyclists and as many as six out of nine riders were marking their professional debut.
Bettini believes that if he is given the required time, four years as he proposed, all the young Italian guns will be up and firing to benefit the team in the near future.
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