Giro del Trentino - Ciclismo

Giro del Trentino’s 34th edition (April 20-23) has been officially launched in Trento (North-East of Italy) on Monday April 12, into the prestigious “Don Guetti” hall, kindly offered by Casse Rurali Trentine local bank, one of the event’s main sponsor. GS Alto Garda-Arco’s President Giacomo Santini revealed an interesting race route with attractable stage towns and locations. Alongside Santini there were race organizers Lina and Nerino Ioppi.

Many local authorities attended the presentation. Amongst them Tiziano Mellarini - Trento’s Tourism Councillor – whose commitment towards Giro del Trentino’s promotion was significant. “Sport events and activities always play an important role in promoting tourism in the territory”, Mellarini said. “More than 180.000 cyclists come to Trentino each year to enjoy their active-holidays in our unique natural environment”.

With local hero Gilberto Simoni looking forward to contest Giro del Trentino as the last race of his brilliant career (Lampre is expected to confirm his situation in the next few days), race organizers have launched a completely new website with enhanced multimedia contents linked to the most famous social networks. The popularity of www.girodeltrentino.com is impressively growing up and the website has now 200.000 viewers per day.

One of the main features of 2010 Giro del Trentino is the presence of "don" Daniele Laghi, a special priest which will provide his spiritual assistance in the race. He’s aim is to assist young guys and to reach them through innovative technologies such as Facebook (his personal profile has more than 5.000 contacts).

An individual time-trial prologue will open this year’s Giro del Trentino, on Tuesday 20th. Riva del Garda will host the start of Stage-1 whilst the finish line is in Torbole sul Garda after 12.5km. The second challenging "Queen" stage is marked out by a 172.5km demanding course from Dro to the mountain top-finish up to San Martino di Castrozza (1466m) through Passo Forcella, Passo del Brocon and Passo Gobbera.

Stage-3 will start from Fiera di Primiero and will end in Trento after a 164km smooth course that could favour the sprinters. It is twenty year since Trento has hosted a stage of the Giro del Trentino. The fourth and final stage will show the second mountain top-finish of the race as the riders will have to face the 1757-metre-high Alpe di Pampeago after a 172.1km route starting from Arco.

It is definitely a challenging and suspenseful 34th edition, as Kazakh rider Alexander Vinokourov confirmed: “For me, Trentino is important for the preparation and the approach for the Giro d’Italia. The very difficult stages of Giro del Trentino correspond to those in the Giro. I really expect from Trentino to be in a better shape and to take my bearings face to the opponents I'll meet few days after at the Giro d’Italia”.

Also in the action there will be Riccardo Riccò, two-stage winner at the recent Settimana Lombarda: “Giro del Trentino is the first main goal of the season and I will fight for a good position in the overall classification”. “I know my condition is growing but I still need to test myself on the mountains against the major competitors”, Riccò added.

Numerous top-class international riders will take part in the 2010 Giro del Trentino. Reigning champion Ivan Basso and Franco Pellizotti will represent Liquigas-Doimo in the race. There are also strong climbers with the likes of Michele Scarponi, Stefano Garzelli, Francesco Masciarelli, Tadej Valjavec, Josè Rujano, Domenico Pozzovivo, Michael Rasmussen and Przemyslav Niemec. Alessandro Petacchi, Danilo Napolitano, Alberto Loddo and Roberto Ferrari will aim at a win in Trento in case of a bunch sprint.

BMC Racing Team will not line-up Alessandro Ballan in Trentino as the Italian rider has been provisionally suspended following his involvement in a doping investigation started in Italy in 2008.

These are the 21 teams that will start from Riva del Garda next April 20th, with the addiction of Continental Professional team Carmioro-NGC:

• Pro Tour: Liquigas-Doimo (Basso, Pellizotti), Astana (Vinokourov, Iglinsky, Gasparotto), Lampre Farnese (Petacchi, Marzano), AG2R La Mondiale (Valjavec), Team Katusha (Ignatiev, Napolitano)
• Professional: BMC Racing Team (Moos), BBox Bouygues Telekom, Acqua&Sapone (Garzelli, Masciarelli), Androni-Diquigiovanni (Scarponi, Loddo), ISD-Neri (Rujano), Colnago-CSF (Pozzovivo), Ceramica Flaminia (Riccò, Noè), De Rosa-Stac Plastic (Montaguti, Ferrari), Voralberg-Corraatec (Dietziker, Camussa), Skil-Shimano (Cornu), Carmioro-NGC (Sella, Pardilla)
• Continental: Miche (Rasmussen, Niemec), Mroz Active Jet, Team NetApp (Benedetti), Adria Mobil, Tyrol Team

The number of Italian and international media representatives and journalists accredited for the 34th Giro del Trentino is significant. Italian national broadcaster RaiSport will guarantee an adequate daily coverage of the event while RadioRai will follow the race from live.

2010 Giro del Trentino’s stages:

• - April 20: RIVA DEL GARDA - TORBOLE SUL GARDA (individual TT 12,5km)
• - April 21: DRO - SAN MARTINO DI CASTROZZA (172,5km)
• - April 22: FIERA DI PRIMIERO – TRENTO (164km)
• - April 23: ARCO - ALPE DI PAMPEAGO VAL DI FIEMME (172.1km)