Team Lampre-ISD will ride the Tour of Beijing ‘to gain the points in the WorldTour ranking’
The second edition of the Tour of Beijing 2012 is the only big race left in the season and is currently the centre of attention for all the World tour and the professional continental teams invited through the wild-card entry.
One reason why the Chinese race is important is because it is the last World Tour race of the season and can really change the UCI World Tour rankings.
Team Lampre-ISD has finalised their roster for the coming race scheduled next week and has noted that earning the UCI points to improve its ranking is the team’s major goal for the race.
The Italian team currently lies at the 14th overall position with a total number of 431 UCI points after the 2012 UCI Elite Men Teams rankings.
Damiano Cunego (184 points), Michele Scarponi (184 points), Diego Ulissi (30), Alessandro Petacchi (18 points) and Przemyslaw Christensen (14) are the team top performers in terms of UCI points earned.
"During the season we didn't obtain the good results we aimed to, even if we gave valuable experience to young talent that will be the top riders in the future," said former world champion and Lampre-ISD general manager Giuseppe Saronni.
"The Beijing race will be very important for us because our goal is to complete the season in a winning way and to gain the points in the WorldTour ranking".
Alessandro Petacchi will lead the Italian team at the five-day race and he will be accompanied by Davide Vigano, Davide Cimolai, and Grega Bole in the sprints department.
Morris Possoni will aim for the 162.5 kilometre climbing stage three between Green Sea Forest Park and Yan Qing Ba Da Ling Great Wall while Manuele Mori and Daniele Pietropolli will have their own chances to claim stage victories at the race.
In the meantime, Team Vacansoleil-DCM is hoping to have at least two cyclists in the top 10 and Tomasz Marczynski and Johnny Hoogerland are chosen for the job.
Kenny Van Hummel, Pim Ligthart and Barry Markus will handle the sprints department for Team Lampre-ISD and are hoping to secure as many UCI points in the final Grand Tour race of the season.
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