Edward Ravasi’s ‘worldTour’ experience, at the service of the EOLO-KOMETA Cycling Team in 2021
The Italian rider Edward Ravasi (1994) will compete next season in the EOLO-KOMETA Cycling Team. The cyclist from Varese is the thirteenth confirmed rider for a project he is joining after four seasons with the UAE Team Emirates in the World Tour category.
“This is a great opportunity for me”, says Ravasi. “I don’t think it’s a step back in my career, far from it. It is true that a WorldTour team may have a bigger budget than a ProTeam formation, and that there are also differences in terms of timing, a more demanding point, but in sporting terms a ProTeam can be just as competitive or more and in terms of timing it is also very interesting. And here we are talking about a great project, with two very important personalities like Alberto and Ivan behind it. A project that has demonstrated that in it the young people learn, progress, and that I personally know since some years ago, when I competed against the structure U23, in the Tour of Bidasoa”.
Ravasi, at 26, has already had the opportunity to compete in two three-week races, the Giro d’Italia 2017 and the Vuelta a España 2018. A great climber, curiously born on the same 5th June 1994 in which the mythical Merano-Aprica stage was contested with Stelvio, Mortirolo and Santa Cristina as part of the struggle between Miguel Indurain and Eugeni Berzin, Ravasi is confident that this new adventure in his sporting career will allow him to progress.
“I am very confident that I can take a step forward. Last season I suffered a fall in the Vuelta a Burgos where I fractured my femur and had to stop suddenly. It’s not an easy injury, I had to work hard to recover and come back. In the end it is a period of lost time, from a competition point of view, that is difficult to recover. And this 2020 season we have had a lot of work in a UAE with many and very good captains. It wasn’t the best season to look for the best,” he reflects.
For the Lombard rider, the 2021 season could allow him to return to the path outlined in 2018: “It is possible to take a step forward, in the line of the 2018 Dauphiné that I think has been my great career so far. Not in terms of the final classification, but every day I was in the fight for the breakaway so that in the end I was caught. And the La Rosière stage, which was a very important day, I held out with the best until the last ten kilometres. Before the injury I was always there in the qualifiers for the youngsters”.
Ivan Basso, sports manager of the EOLO-KOMETA Cycling Team: “We are very happy with Edward in the team, we believe he can do great things. In the most important race of the u23 category, the l’Avenir, he left samples of his quality and always rode with the best. In 2016 he finished second, behind David Gaudu. He now has four years’ experience on the WordTour, although either due to the misfortune of injuries or because he had to work for his leaders, he has not yet had the opportunity to give his best. I think that, as he was already in the u23 category, he can be one of the best riders in the peloton”.
(automatic translation, sorry for mistakes)
