Team Type 1 to go for the Grand Tours
At the beginning of August, Phil Sutherland, founder and chief of the American Continental cycling team Type 1, announced the team’s application to the Union Cycliste Internationale to race as a European-based Pro Continental team in the 2011 season. Today, as part of the ongoing effort to expand the team internationally, manager Vassili Davidenko announced the signing of seven new riders.
"These new additions to the squad are the culmination of a lot of hard work in putting together the right squad that can compete at the highest levels of the pro peloton,” said Davidenko. “Team Type 1 has high hopes to go to the Giro d'Italia next year and bring our message to hundreds of millions of cycling fans about how we can help people affected by diabetes around the globe.”
The team was founded in 2006 by Sutherland and Joe Eldridge, both type 1 diabetics, and remains the only professional cycling team which includes riders with that condition. The team’s goal is to mount the first type 1 diabetic cyclist to compete in the Giro d’Italia.
"We told our riders at the beginning of the year that our focus would be international expansion," said Sutherland. "We chose to invest our money … doing the races that would give us the opportunity to make that next step to Pro Continental and the Giro d'Italia.”
New to the team are ProTour-rider Alexander Efimkin, ProContinental riders Kiel Reijnen, Ben King, Alessandro Bazzana, and two more riders promoted from their own development team. These six follow from the earlier announcement that former Tour de France leader Rubens Bertogliati would be joining the team. Efimkin will be the team leader in the European circuit.
“He’s a stage racer and an endurance rider, and up until now he has been in the service of his teammates,” said Davidenko. “We are very excited that next year we will have the opportunity to work for him.”
Davidenko also confirmed Javier Megias has renewed his contract. “Right now our goal is to put Javier Megias on a squad that will hopefully be invited to the Giro,” he continued. “He's arguably the best T1 (type 1 diabetic) athlete in the world, and he took a big chance in coming to America to join our team last season. We're excited to get back to Europe with him and a whole bunch of great new riders on the roster."
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