Patrick Lefevere, love him or hate him, has once again managed to keep his business in order. His team is polyvalent in one-day races and he doesn’t need to worry about successors either. The Belgian team manager remained calm on the transfer market, despite several avances, but just as in previous years he managed to get a positive result in selling and buying.


From the remains of Discovery Channel and Unibet.com he took Belgian champion Stijn Devolder and Italian hills-specialist Matteo Carrara. The search for a new team by his brother Vladimir also paid off for Alexandr Efimkin. Quickstep fell for the trick and contracted the fast Barloworld climber.


Three seniors, Bacquet, Vasseur and Van Petegem retired, while Geert Verheyen extended his career for another year at Mitsubishi. Bram Tankink had a hard time deciding, but finally chose to move to Rabobank. Ivan Santaromita, a young Italian climber, also chose to go back to his home country and signed for Liquigas.


In one-day races Lefevere shouldn’t have any worries. Boonen, Steegmans and Devolder form a great threesome on the cobblestones, although the last two are no certainties. Both of them have off-days or little injuries quite often, so they can’t always be relied upon to lead the team.


In the hilly classics Bettini will, under normal circumstances, be the team captain although there is a good possibility that he will pass that role to his team mates now and then this year. The Italian is starting to show some signs of aging, so he will mostly aim at the Olympics in Beijing and the World Championships in his home country. In the spring classics Barredo and Visconti could fill his footsteps, although they haven’t made the connection with the top riders yet.


As has been the case for many years, the spots for grand tour riders are much less filled. With Garate (Giro), Efimkin and Carrara the team has a few climbers, but especially the last two fall short in a stage race longer than a week. A good thing is that the team has plenty of attractive riders to compensate the lack of general classification riders.


In
Stijn Devolder (Discovery Channel), Matteo Carrara (Unibet.com), Alexandr Efimkin (Barloworld)


Out
Serge Baguet, Cédric Vasseur, Peter van Petegem (retired), Ivan Santaromita (Liquigas), Bram Tankink (Rabobank), Geert Verheyen (Mitsubishi-Jartazi)