Absent from today’s announcement of the lineup of the Lampre-ISD team for the Tour de France, Damiano Cunego has structured his season around trying to become world road race champion on a course that should suit his characteristics.
Cunego took his best-ever Tour placing of sixth last year but with a course heavy on time trials and short on summit finishes, he’ll look instead to the Tour of Spain.
His team has explained the thinking behind his 2012 programme, saying that everything is based on his rainbow jersey aspirations.
“During the spring, Damiano and the technical staff of the team studied the possible program of races and they all agreed that it was better for Damiano to take part in Giro d’Italia, ending the first part of the season at the Tour de Suisse,” team spokesman Andrea Appiani told VeloNation today.
“Then, in the second part of the season there will be a top target such as the World Championship, on a course that could suit Cunego’s characteristics very well. So it will be better for Damiano to take part in the Vuelta in order to prepare the World Championship, rather than racing the Tour de France.”
Cunego finished sixth in the Giro d’Italia in June. He won the race back in 2004. His best world championship showing was in 2008 when he finished second behind Italian team-mate Alessandro Ballan in Varese. This year’s course takes in many of the same roads as the Amstel Gold Race, which he won in 2008.
At 30 years of age, he knows he has potentially the best opportunity of his career to become world champion this autumn.