Former world under 23 champion Fabio Duarte is tipped to be one of the first new signatures to the Geox team, which was confirmed this week as succeeding the current Footon-Servetto setup.
The gifted Colombia es Pasión-Cafe de Colombia rider won today’s twelfth stage of the Vuelta a Colombia, outsprinting Oscar Sevilla (Indeportes Antioquia) to the line in Manizales and taking his second such victory in this year’s race. They had joined up with Duarte’s team-mate Alex Cano and Tour of Malaysia winner Jose Rujano (Loteria de Boyacá) on the last climb of the day, pulling clear of the rest of the field and scrapping it out between them.
According to several media sources, the 2008 Espoir worlds winner will spend the next two seasons with Mauro Gianetti’s Geox team, and should be one of the strongest of its young talents.
Duarte won the Circuito Montañés this year, as well as netting a stage win plus second overall in the Vuelta a Asturias.
After the Circuito Montañés victory, he made it clear that he planned to step things up in the near future. “I have several offers from the best teams from the world's elite, seven [of them], and they are quite tempting,” the 24 year old said, according to Biciciclismo. “I want to race the Giro d'Italia…my wish is to go there to fit myself into the top level of cycling. That's my goal. I have to choose the best.”
Duarte was rumoured last season to be heading to Footon-Servetto but that move never transpired. One year on, it seems like he will go to the team after all, or rather to its 2011 re-named incarnation.
Colombia will hope that the talented young rider can continue developing and help return the nation to cycling greatness. In the 1980s and early 90s, riders such as Luis Herrera, Fabio Parra, Oliverio Rincón, Álvaro Mejía and Santiago Botero lit up the roads of the Tour de France, while more recently Juan Mauricio Soler grabbed a stage win plus the mountains jersey. However the riders do not play as big a part in the race as before, making the thoughts of a new wave of gifted competitors from the South American country all the more tantalising.