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San Luis Obispo, CA, 16 October 2008 - Team Columbia are expecting this Saturday’s Tour of Lombardy Classic in Italy to be anything but predictable.

“It’s our last race of the season, but we will have to stay very focused because Lombardy is going to be a fast-moving, wide-open race this year,” comments team sports director Valerio Piva.

“In the one-day races we’ve done earlier this month in Italy [the Coppa Sabatini, Giro D’Emilia and GP Beghelli] you could tell a lot of the big names are quite tired, whilst other Classics specialists like Davide Rebellin will be missing Lombardy completely.”

“That means I don’t think any team will be able to keep control of Lombardy.”

“We’ll have to be sure to get somebody in the early break, too. It might well stay away to the finish.”
“If it doesn’t, then the Madonna del Ghisallo climb [around 45 kilometres from the finish] will be where Lombardy really takes shape.”

“The Ghisallo is like the Cote de la Redoute climb in [the spring Classic] Liege-Bastogne-Liege.”

“It’s still a fairly long way from the finish, so you can’t win the race there, but you can certainly lose it.”

Columbia’s two Italian riders, Marco Pinotti and Morris Possoni, are both expected to put on a good performance on Saturday.

“Those three one-day Classics earlier this month were useful for keeping the team from losing focus after the World Championships, and Marco and Morris are both very motivated,” adds Piva. “But we’ll be keeping all our options open.”

“We’ll have the same team line-up for both the Giro del Piemonte [on Thursday October 16th] and for the Tour of Lombardy, so we’ll be able to get a better idea in the first event about who’s best placed to get a top result in the second.”

“But Piemonte’s pretty flat and we’ve not got a sprinter, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on the early breaks in that race too.”

Team Columbia for Tour of Lombardy: Michael Barry (Can); Scott Davis (Aus); Gert Dockx (Bel); Craig Lewis (USA); Marco Pinotti (Ita); Morris Possoni (Ita); Michael Rogers (Aus); Kanstantin Sivtsov (Byl).