PARIS, April 30, 2010 (AFP) – Spaniard Carlos Sastre will saddle up for the Giro d’Italia in a little over a week hoping to go one better than his fourth place finish last year.

Sastre won the Tour de France in 2008 but focused most of his energy last year on the three-week Italian race, winning two prestigious mountain stages on his way to missing out on a podium place.

In reality Sastre should have finished third in the Giro as Italian Danilo Di Luca, who finished runner-up to Russia’s Denis Menchov in 2009, was later banned for doping.

In February 2010 Di Luca was informed that samples provided during the three-week Giro had tested positive twice for the latest generation of the banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin), called CERA.

He is currently serving a two-year ban.

The Giro d’Italia runs from May 8-30 and starts with a 8.4km time trial in Amsterdam.

Team Cervelo:
Inigo Cuesta (ESP), Volodymyr Gustov (UKR), Ted King (USA), Ignatas Konovalovas (LTU), Daniel Lloyd (GBR), Gabriel Rasch (NOR), Carlos Sastre (ESP), Xavier Tondo (ESP), Marcel Wyss (SUI).