The Russian WorldTour Team Katusha is ready for the sixth time in its history to take the start in the most prestigious stage race in the world – the Tour de France.
The 2014 Tour de France will be held on July 5th to 27th. La Grande Boucle will kick off in the English city of Leeds, where the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will open the race. Following are two more stages held in England. After moving to the continent, the riders for one day will visit Belgium to commemorate the victims of the Great War and pass through Northern France. Then the Boucle will “twist” over the Alps and the Pyrenees before making a traditional finish in Paris on the Champs Élysées.
This year Team Katusha will have the following roster for the Tour de France: Iurii Trofimov, Joaquim Rodriguez, Egor Silin, Simon Špilak, Alexander Kristoff, Aleksandr Porsev, Luca Paolini, Gatis Smukulis and Vladimir Isaychev.
The sports directors are: José Azevedo, Dmitry Konyshev, Torsten Schmidt and Uwe Peschel.
- Team Katusha brings to the Tour de France a balanced roster, where a part of the team will be aiming for mountain stages and another part will aim for the sprinters’ stages. This line-up reflects two main objectives for the team in the race. On the one hand Iurii Trofimov will fight for the Top-10 of the general classification. From the other side Alexander Kristoff will fight with the world’s best sprinters in the flat stages. In addition, this year Joaquim Rodriguez, one of the undoubted leaders of Team Katusha, goes to the Tour de France in the unusual role of a free lancer, - explains general manager of Team Katusha Viacheslav Ekimov. – We hope “Purito” will be able to find good form, which will allow him to fight for a stage win. And, of course, other riders of the team will hunt for stage wins, too. I think Katusha is ready for a new three-week adventure and the only thing I would like to wish for our team is just some good luck, the only component we really missed at the Giro d’Italia.
You can see more details by visiting the official web site: http://www.letour.fr/
Just prior to the start of the Tour de France, on July 3rd, 14:00 (2 P.M.) in the hotel Cedar Court Harrogate (Park Parade HG1 5AH Harrogate, Yorkshire) Team Katusha will hold its press-conference.
