News for August 22, 1997

Transfer Update

Fernando Escartin & Roberto Heras will continue to be part of Team Kelme - Costa Blanca for the next few years. Fernando Escartin, who finished fifth at the last Tour de France, signed for two more years, while Roberto Heras signed for three.

Giancarlo Ferretti has officially confirmed that his team (MG-Technogym) will finish this fine season. Emanuele Bombini, will lose Batik-Del Monte, but he has yet to decide to release his best riders. The center of the coming negotiations is Michele Bartoli. The Tuscan, who's number 2 in the World Classification has met with Davide Boifava (Asics) & Gianluigi Stanga (Team Polti), but he's had an interesting offer from Mapei-GB. Mapei-GB's Squinzi could renounce to the Belgian block of the team (Museeuw, Steels, Vandenbroucke and manager Lefevere) to reinforce the group that rides the stage races around Pavel Tonkov and have Bartoli, Tafi and Ballerini for the Classics. Lefevere, who counts on the backup by GB, has been trying to work on a deal (contacted Cofidis) for a combination with the Belgian block.

Eugenio Berzin will move to la Francaise des Jeux, where together with Davide Rebellin will gear towards the Giro. Gabriele Colombo has reached an agreement with French Team Casino. In France, Cofidis, are after Francesco Casagrande & Massimiliano Lelli. The only new Italian team in the works is Team Ballan, of Flavio Miozzo. Ballan has signed sprinter Endrio Leoni. Silvio Martinello will be leaving Saeco since he can't co-exist with Cipollini, he might be hired by Mercatone Uno, Asics or Mapei-GB. Chiappucci could remain with Boifava at Asics if he wants to continue racing. Also, Gianni Savio is trying to build a team around Chiappucci, with new sponsor Kross-Montanari.

Tour of Spain

The next edition of la Vuelta a Espaņa, which will start on September 6th at the Portuguese capital of Lisbon and will finish on the 28th in Madrid, will count with the presence of 22 teams of 9 riders each. Seven of the participating teams are in the top 10 of the Team UCI World Rankings and the country with the most teams is Italy with six, followed by Spain with five. The last time that La Vuelta had 22 teams participating was on the 1991 edition, while in the last editions the number of teams gave been 20.

The participating teams and their UCI rankings as of August 8: 

Mapei (ITA)              1
ONCE (ESP)               3
Festina (FRA)            4
Saeco (RSM)              5
Rabobank (HOL)           7
Banesto (ESP)            9
Gan (FRA)               10
TVM (HOL)               11
Casino (FRA)            13
Kelme (ESP)             15
Cofidis (FRA)           16
US Postal (USA)         18
Scrigno (ITA)           20
Asics (ITA)             21
Brescialat (ITA)        23
Refin (ITA)             24
Estepona (ESP)          25
Aki (MON)               26
Cantina Tollo (ITA)     28
Flavia Telecom (COL)    32
Euskadi Euskaltel (ESP) 34
Maia (POR)              49