Lampre-ISD has added firepower to its line up for next year, in the form of sprinter Davide Cimolai. The 22 year old joins the Italian team from Liquigas-Cannondale to help veteran Alessandro Petacchi in the sprints. In August, Liquigas-Cannondale announced it would be re-signing Cimolai for the 2012 season. However, the confusion seems to have been cleared up as Lampre-ISD has officially confirmed his transfer to its team.
In a statement sent out by the team, it said, “As already announced on August, Davide Cimolai will be a key member of Lampre-ISD in the next two years.
Born in Pordenone in 1989, the young sprinter will give to blue-fucsia team a boost of speed: he'll be very useful for Petacchi and he'll be able to have his own chances, without forgetting his pistard [track] qualities.”
Cimolai comes from a track background and is currently the under 23 European Scratch champion. He is yet to pick up an individual win on the road but was part of the winning Liquigas-Cannondale team in last year’s Settimana Coppi e Bartali team time trial. This year he racked up a number of top ten places, namely in the Tour of Utah, Tour of Luxembourg and GP Kranj.
Davide Cimolai will work closely with Danilo Hondo who has acted as Petacchi’s right hand man the last few seasons. The team has also signed Davide Viganò from Leopard Trek. It will be Viganò’s fifth new team in as many years.
Other riders expected to be part of Lampre-ISD are Matteo Rabottini, Alberto Ongarato and stagiaire Massimo Graziato.