Top Italian team holds two team training camps in next month: San Pellegrino and Sardinia
Ivan Basso, Vincenzo Nibali and the rest of Italian team Liquigas will meet twice in the next month to prepare for the coming season.
For the third year, the 29-rider team will meet at Moena on Passo San Pellegrino in the Dolomite Mountains. Liquigas will centre on team building, including hikes in the surrounding snow covered forests at 1200 metres. On the fourth and final day, December 2, the team will announce its riders' schedules for next season.
Italian Ivan Basso will start his season at the Tour of Argentina. He is expected to skip the Giro d'Italia after already winning it twice, in 2006 and this year, and focus on the Tour de France. Italian Vincenzo Nibali helped Basso win the Giro d'Italia this year and then won the third and final Grand Tour, the Vuelta a España in September. Next year, he will likely lead Liquigas at the Giro d'Italia.
Nibali is currently visiting his parents other family members in Sicily. Last week, he rode up both the north and south side of Mount Etna, Europe's most active volcano and the focal point of the Southern leg of next year's Giro d'Italia. Stage nine uses both sides and ends with the 19.4-kilometre climb up the southern side to Rifugio Sapienza at 1904 metres.
After the first camp on Passo San Pellegrino, Nibali and team Liquigas will meet in Sardinia from December 9 to 22. The cyclists will receive their new Cannondale bicycles and train together for the first time ahead of the new year.
Liquigas will present its team on January 10 in Milan and then some of its riders will begin their season on January 16 at the Tour Down Under in Adelaide, Australia.