The NIPPO Vini Fantini Europa Ovini will be the only Italian team to start the monument race in The Netherlands. It will be the last Amstel Gold Race of the Little Prince Damiano Cunego, winner of the 2008 edition. It will be also the first Amstel Gold Race with the #OrangeBlue jersey and the second of the career, for Marco Canola that in The Netherlands in 2017 already won the Volta Limburg, showing his feeling with the country road and fans.
Amstel Gold race 2018 – Wild Card.
The NIPPO Vini Fantini Europa Ovini team will be the only Italian team to start the great monument of the North on 15th of April 2018, thanks to the Wild Card received from the organizers. It will be the last Amstel Gold Race of Damiano Cunego, winner of the 2008 edition of the race, and the first one as #OrangeBlue leader for Marco Canola, at his second Amstel Gold Race in career.
The team will find competitors of very high level, but also a course that fits perfectly with the characteristic of #OrangeBlue leaders and riders. The team will have the honor to be the only Italian team in front of the Dutch public, there where cycling is like a religion and the first sport of the country for fans on the roads.
The General Manager of the team Francesco Pelosi is very satisfied for the Wild Card received: “It is a big honor for us to be back in this great race, a monument of cycling in the North of Europe. We will try to do our best as a team. We want to glorify a champion like Damiano Cunego that is going to close his career during this season and so he will ride his last Amstel Gold Race after winning the race of 2008. We will be competitive from a sportive point of view with our leader Marco Canola. The road fits his characteristic and with the ones of our best riders. For this reason we really want to thanks the organizers of the race that decided to give this important opportunity to the team and to our riders. We will race with big motivation and determination.”