Manuel Belletti, the second reinforcement for the new EOLO-KOMETA Cycling Team
The Italian Manuel Belletti will race next season in the new EOLO-KOMETA Cycling Team. The Androni Giocattoli cyclist, who has competed in the last two seasons, has signed up for a season and is looking forward to a project that will make the jump to the ProTeam category in 2021.
“I have had the opportunity to compete against the structure on several occasions. I have been able to verify in the competition like at level of organization and attitude in race this equipment was to another level within the continental category. A small team, but very well organized and always with projection towards the future. For me it is a great honour that this project has fixed on me in its growth”, says the rider born in Cesena in 1985.
Belletti is a very experienced rider, with a great speed and a very interesting track record in which his stage victory at the finish of the 2010 Giro d’Italia in Cesenatico, the edition of the Coppa Bernocchi in the same year or a stage in the 2019 Giro di Sicilia stand out. In a race of great importance to the formation as the Tour de Hongrie, Belletti has achieved two stages (2018, 2019) and the overall final of the 2018 edition. Of his 21 victories as a professional, nine have come on Italian territory.
“For me, 2021 is an exciting year with the arrival of this new project, it was not very difficult to decide to come once Luca Mazanti told me the interest. Any career is important. I am very happy in any career, all are great scenarios. But I am Italian and the Giro will always be in my heart. It is the race of my country,” he continues.
Fran Contador, general manager of the EOLO-KOMETA Cycling Team, adds: “From the first moment we began to shape the 2021 team, Ivan Basso always considered that Manuel Belletti should come to our team. He is a veteran cyclist, fast and has a great nose for racing. That makes him a versatile cyclist. And he is also a winner. He is also a great connoisseur of the professional continental category. Without a doubt he will be a key part of this first journey in the new category”.
“Of course victories are always going to be an important objective, but I am also very attracted to the possibility of contributing my experience to a team where there are many young riders with a great future. I like it”, concludes the cyclist from Sant’Angello de Gatteo. “It’s a stimulus. We are seeing how cycling has changed a lot, especially in these last two years, thanks to a great generational change led by young people of great quality who are winning practically from their first year”.
(automatic translation, sorry for mistakes)
