Team Katusha announced its final roster for the Tour de France 2012
Team Katusha announced its final squad for the most awaited cycling race of the season, the Tour de France 2012.
Denis Menchov will share the General Classifications with Oscar Freire during the coming race.
"The team is great: we selected the riders very carefully,” Denis briefed
“I talked a lot with the sporting directors, so I think that's the best possible team bearing in mind our shape and the profile of the competition".
"We have good domestiques and during this season Freire has proved to be in good shape”.
“I'm very satisfied with the final roster, and I'm sure we will obtain some great results".
Denis joined Team Katusha in 2012 and it will be his first Grand Tour race with the home team, he is ready to throw everything at the French Grand Tour.
Tour de France is the only Grand Tour that is not listed in the Russian’s resume and he is fully focussed to make it happen this year.
“It's not a secret that this year it [Tour de France] was my main goal, it would be the crowning achievement of my career, so that's why I look forward to start".
The 34-year-old is widely experienced with as many as 19 Grand Tour races to his credit, including three Giro d’Italia, ten Tour de France and six Vuelta a Espana participations throughout his career.
Menchov managed to grab the overall classifications on three different occasions during Giro d’Italia (2009), Vuelta a Espana (2005, 2007) and secured the second overall position during the Tour de France 2010.
On the other hand, Oscar Freire Gomez is relatively less experience but his 2012 form is way better than Denis.
Oscar has bagged a stage each at the Santos Tour Down Under and the Vuelta a Andalucia in the earlier part of the season.
He finished second during the E3 Harelbeke and Brabantse Pijl, fourth at the Amstel Gold Race and occupied the seventh overall position at the Milan-San Remo 2012.
Katusha team for the 2012 Tour de France: Giampaolo Caruso, Oscar Freire, Vladimir Gusev, Joan Horrach, Aliaksandr Kuchynski, Denis Menchov, Luca Paolini, Yuriy Trofimov and Eduard Vorganov.
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