Italian Riccardo Verza completes the Kometa-Xstra project for 2020 season
The third project of the Alberto Contador Foundation in the continental category closes its squad for next season. The Italian Riccardo Verza becomes the seventh and last incorporation of the future Kometa-Xstra, current Kometa Cycling Team. Verza (East, 22 August 1997) comes from Zalf-Euromobil, with whom he took part in the last edition of the Giro d’Italia sub23, and stands out for being a team cyclist. A victory in the Circuit of the Compitese of Capannori and two second places in the Coppa Varignana of Osteria Grande and the GP Somma of Somma Lobardo, among his most outstanding performances of this season.
“I am a rider who, being in good shape, can perform in any kind of terrain. I would like to be a useful cyclist for the team”, explains a Verza who knows the Kometa Cycling Team perfectly. “I’m a great friend of Stefano Oldani, who has been in the squad this year. He told me a lot about the team. I know that this year I will have the opportunity to grow a lot as a cyclist. It’s a good team and of course it’s a great honour to be part of it”.
“I haven’t been a very winning cyclist in lower categories. Only as a Youth did I stand out more in terms of victories and I managed to be called by Italy to compete in two editions of the world championships, in Ponferrada 2014 and in Richmond 2015”, continues a rider who in those years won some title in Veneto. “The truth is that it was difficult for me to adapt to the change of category and only this year in Zalf have I been able to return to a certain level”.
For Verza, cycling is not an unknown activity at all. “I started in cycling thanks to my father. He was a professional in the eighties and sowed this seed in our house,” he recalls. His father is Fabrizio Verza, who was active between 1982 and 1985 in teams such as Gis Gelati-Ecoflam or Bianchi Piaggio; his career ended abruptly as a result of an accident he suffered during training against a truck.
Questioned by the cycling competition he would most like to win at some point, the new Kometa-Xstra cyclist does not hesitate: “My favourite race is Milano-Sanremo. It is undoubtedly one of the most important races in the world and for me, as an Italian, winning in Sanremo is one of the most important things that can happen in a professional race”.
Verza is the thirteenth and last rider to make up the Kometa-Xstra squad in 2020. The Italian arrives at the structure directed by Jesús Hernández and Dario Andriotto together with his compatriots Giacomo Garavaglia and Alessandro Fancellu, the Danish Mathias Larsen, the Hungarian Erik Fetter and the Spaniards Sergio García and Alejandro Ropero. The seven new faces join a squad that includes Italy’s Antonio Puppio, Hungary’s Márton Dina, Portugal’s Daniel Viegas and Spain’s Juan Camacho, José Antonio García and Diego Pablo Sevilla.
The new season of the team will begin to roll in mid-November with a first meeting of the staff and staff in Pinto, Madrid. These days of coexistence will take place on November 11 and 12.
(automatic translation, sorry for mistakes)
