Management

MOVISTAR TEAM (MOV) - ESP

After a year in which they had no clear leader, but still took nearly two dozen wins, Spain’s longest standing ProTeam Movistar have signed not one, but two key names for 2012 - Alejandro Valverde and Juan José Cobo.

As a squad that started in the mid-eighties as Reynolds and which hit the jackpot as Banesto in the mid-1990s thanks to Miguel Indurain’s five Tour de France wins, no one could accuse the Movistar management of lacking in experience. And after a low-key but consistent 2011, in 2012 the team is upping its game again.

Whilst Valverde will look to the Ardennes Classics as his first big objective of the season, Juan José Cobo will be their main contender in the Tour de France this summer before attempting to repeat his unexpected 2011 win in the Vuelta a España.

Spain’s longstanding team manager, Eusebio Unzue, refuses to put either of his new charges under excessive pressure in their first year in the team, saying “we are not going to set ourselves concrete objectives for 2012 but it’s clear that we have the potential to fight for victories in the most important races.”

Should they start to succeed, Valverde and Cobo will find themselves supported by one of the most experienced groups of Grand Tour riders that any ProTeam could desire. The often-underestimated Rui Costa of Portugal, who won both the GP Montreal and a tough semi-mountainous stage of the Tour de France last year, will be one key support rider. Vasil Kiryienka, who captured the toughest Giro 2011 Alpine stage as well as a complicated, hilly, stage of the Vuelta al País Vasco will be another. Then there are three highly knowledgeable team captains, Pablo Lastras (himself a leader of the Vuelta a España last year), David Arroyo (second in the Giro d’Italia 2010) and Italian veteran Marzio Bruseghin. Nor can Movistar’s two gifted fastmen, 2011 Giro stage winner Fran Ventoso and Spanish national champion Jose Joaquin Rojas be discounted when it comes to fighting for the victory in bunch sprint stages of the Grand Tours.