The new season kicked off for Team CSC this weekend, with the Tour of Qatar. Ivan Basso signed up for three more years with Bjarne Riis and Team CSC during the Tour de France, and he is riding on what must certainly be considered one of the strongest teams in the world. The Team CSC line up for 2006:
Kurt-Asle Arvesen, Lars Bak, Ivan Basso, Michael Blaudzun, Matti Breschel, Fabian Cancellara, Iñigo Cuesta, Volodymir Gustov, Allan Johansen, Bobby Julich, Kasper Klostergaard, Karsten Kroon, Marcus Ljungqvist, Giovanni Lombardi, Peter Luttenberger, Lars Michaelsen, Christian Müller, Stuart O’Grady, Martin Pedersen, Andrea Peron, Jakob Piil, Luke Roberts, Carlos Sastre, Fränk Schleck, Andy Schleck, Nicki Sørensen, Brian Vandborg, Christian Vande Velde, Jens Voigt, and David Zabriskie.
As was announced earlier, the main goals for Ivan Basso this year will once again be the Giro d’Italia and the Tour the France. The pre-selection for the two squads are as follows.
For the Giro d’Italia:
Ivan Basso, Bobby Julich, Nicki Sørensen, Andrea Peron, Iñigo Cuesta, Giovanni Lombardi, Michael Blaudzun, Volodymir Gustov and Christian Vande Velde.
For the Tour de France:
Ivan Basso, Carlos Sastre, Jens Voigt, Stuart O’Grady, Kurt-Asle Arvesen, Frank Schleck, Fabien Cancellara, Jakob Piil, Bobby Julich, Giovanni Lombardi, and Dave Zabriskie.
Bjarne Riis has set high goals for the team this year, and says that the goal is to win all three Grand Tours - if possible - with Basso as the captain for the Giro and the Tour, and Carlos Sastre in the Vuelta (last year’s second place). An exciting season lies ahead.
Ivan Basso is currently being set up by the Italian Federation to ride the World Championships in Salzburg, 2006. Basso’s improvements last year have so impressed the Italian selectors, that they consider him to be one of the top TTs in the country. It is reported that Basso is willing to ride, but worries about whether his form in September, on top of a year with both Giro and Tour participation, will be good enough to be competitive.
The World time trial cirtuit is a rolling 50.8 km circuit, which would of course be very suitable to a rider of Ivan’s talents. For now, Ivan leaves his options open - however, it is reported that Basso has already agreed to represent Italy in another Time Trial Championship - namely the 2008 Olympics.
Pictures of the Team CSC training camp in Tuscany can be found at: Bettini Photo.
Team CSC is currently occuppied in their traditional January training camp at Lucca in Toscana, Italy. As usual, the riders had to take the “Monte Serra” test - a climb up the famous Monte Serra of 6.3 km. Yesterday, Basso cracked his personal winter record for the mountain - clocking 16:40 up the ascent. In comparison, his personal best (just prior to the Tour de France 2005) was at 16:10, and significantly better than his previous winter best of 17:30.
The entire team started the climb together, but a selection was quickly made with Inigo Cuesta, Nicki Sörensen, Brian Vandborg, David Zabriskie and Basso. On the last kilometer, only Zabriskie could follow Basso and Zabriskie actually succeeded in beating Basso to the top. Kudos to DZ - we hope to see even more of him this year as well.
Considering that Ivan is still 3 kgs from his ideal weight, the early season signs promise that we will see a Basso stronger than ever before in 2006.
Happy New Year everyone, and welcome back to the site (which will soon celebrate its first anniversary). Hopefully we will have a 2006 with lots to cheer about. If nothing else, we shall have lots of excitement with Ivan Basso riding both the Giro and the Tour again. 
