FanPost

Liquigas 2010: Shades of T-Mobile?

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Photo by Robert Laberge, Getty Images Sport

Looking at various news reports(here,here,here, here, and here) regarding next year's racing for the boys in green, it looks like some polemica might be hitting the Leaky Gas bus. Ivan Basso has declared that he is going to race the Giro/Tour double this coming year while Vincenzo Nibali is currently trying to find a Basso voodoo doll so that he can set things straight...

Breaking news!!!(thanks to Grzdylu and Het Neiuwsblad): Apparently Kreuziger has an oral agreement with Omega-Pharma Lotto for the upcoming season and they are willing to buy him out of his contract. This could alleviate some of the tension on Liquigas for the upcoming season but it raises new questions...Like why would Kreuziger go to a black hole of stage racing that is Silence-Lotto?...  Well this one is dead in the water most likely...Kreuziger said he is staying with Leaky through 2010 and what was reported to be an oral agreement was just a little bit of talks between he and Omega Pharma

As it stands right now, this is how it is going to be for next's years big races...

Giro: Co-Leadership between Pellizoti and Basso (2nd and 4th on the GC from this past year). This is fairly standard among teams so that they can have another option if there is any problems during the race, especially is Basso is trying to target the Tour. It is still quite early but it looks like a good opportunity of Pellizoti to shine in his home race after steadily rising the last few years.  With the gnarly course that was presented, it looks like Leaky should do well.

Tour of Cali: Nibali will make his apperance for the big sponsor, Cannondale, at the new and improved Tour of California. After taking a break after the classics, he will be ramping it up for the Tour (Cali style) with Armstrong, Little Levi, DZ, etc.

With Kreuziger doing his normal Tour de Suisse in June it looks like all 3 big names will be on good form for the Tour...and that is where the problem starts...

Le Tour:

From what I have seen, it will be a Basso led squad with Pellizoti going for the dots again and Kreuz and Nibali on a leash. It has clearly been shown that Basso is not yet up to his former "extra-terrestial" self after his double 4th place finishes (not including Di Luca) in the Giro and Vuelta though he still deserves leadership. Nibali and Kreuziger have both been rapidly improving, with Nibali showing just a bit more. At age 24, Basso had not even finshed the Tour yet, let alone place in the top 10 which both Kreuziger and Nibali have done so they have shown themselves to be ahead of the curve just a bit. If this team can keep together, it could arguably be the strongest in the race with CSC losing a lot of firepower, Astana not at full capacity (yet), and others not having the same depth. They could place 3 in the top 8 and have 2 amazing domestiques in Szmyd and Pellizotti 

The only problem I see is the "T-Mobile" effect. They have the one leader Basso (Jan) and 2 very strong riders that can show that they are no slouches in Nibali and Kreuziger (Kloden and Vinokourov). Now I don't think it will come to Szymd chasing down a wild Kreuziger attack but it could lead to some interesting stories in the news because Nibali could very well be stronger than Basso and want to do something for himself and not be stuck sheparding him 30 seconds behind the leaders. Meanwhile Kreuziger will want to show that he is not just "top 10" material and what better place to do it at than Le Tour. 

It might be some polemica! brewing up...