Claudio Corti and Igor Astarloa had a great year in 2003. They won Fleche Wallone together, had a powerhouse Italian team and Igor won the World Title. Their team had red kits and Cannondale bikes. Nothing could be better. In 2004, Astarloa suffered the “Curse of the World Champion” and eventually tumbled down to the lowly South African Barloworld team for 2005.
Now in 2006, old friend and team manager Corti comes in to bring back the glory days of only two years ago. What happened since then? The ProTour changed the climate that smaller Italian teams used to enjoy. They could put together a team almost at the last minute and still get into some very big races, even the Tour. But this is 2006 and Barloworld will have to spend some time in the Continental circuit and hope for an upgrade sometime in the future.
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The mini-saga of where will Igor Astarloa ride next season has been solved. As predicted in the virtual pages of Velochimp.com (which is a new way for you readers to get to this site), the Spanish classics specialist will stay with the South African/ British/Italian Barloworld team. The former World Champion must have been swayed by the recent signing of Claudio Corti as Director Sportif. As part of Corti joining Barloworld, Astarloa will be riding on Cannondale bikes once again.
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Claudio Corti who was behind the Saeco success as well teams such as Chateau D’Ax with Gianni Bugno joined the struggling Barloworld team. With the signing, he may bring in co-sponsor Caffitta and possibly Cannondale bikes. Former Fassa assitant DS Alberto Volpi who was headed to Aqua e Sapone is instead joining Corti at Barloworld. Corti is moving quickly to ramp up the struggling team.
Where’s Igor?
Velochimp is venturing to guess that Barloworld may possibly re-sign Igor Astarloa since he is still without a team. The lack of news about Igor Astarloa’s team for next year and the signing of Corti, Volpi and possibly Cannondale bikes may mean that the Spanish one-day specialist may stay in the British/Italian/South African outfit.
La Barloworld sceglie Claudio Corti – Yahoo! Sport IT
