The NIPPO Vini Fantini team is preparing the race, also looking forward to the important Tour of Japan. Kazushige Kuboki is the sprinter, Ivan Santaromita and Hideto Nakane the climbers, Pierpaolo De Negri for the mixed stages and Masakazu Ito and Kohei Uchima to help the team-mates and ready for single stage actions.
The Tour d’Azerbaïdjan will take place from 3rd May to 7th May and will be very important for the team looking forward to the Tour of Japan to test the conditions of the best Japanese riders of the team. 23 team on the start-line for the race of category 2.1.
2 Italian Professional teams will be in race, NIPPO Vini Fantini and Wilier-Triestina, for a mixed road with 2 stages for climbers, one for sprinters and a couple of stages open to different results.
The Italian-Japanese team will have as leaders the Italian climber Ivan Santaromita and the Japanese Hideto Nakane, already “Best of Asian” in Tour de Langkawi 2017. The fast rider of the team will be Kazushige Kuboki, together with the expert rider Pierpaolo De Negri, cyclist perfect also for the mixed stages. To complete the lineup the Japanese rider Masakazu Ito and Kohei Uchima.
On the team car to lead the team will be Stefano Giuliani. The Sports Directors of Abruzzo, after the many placements in Tour of Croatia, will battle for the success in the Tour d’Azerbaijan: “We will face of some hard stages, especially the second one, yet important for the general ranking and the stage n.4. In these stages our most important riders are Santaromita and Nakane. For sprint arrivals we will have Kazushige Kuboki and in all the race we will ride for our Japanese riders. In fact this race will be important for us also looking forward to the Tour of Japan, one of the most important races for us and our sponsors.”
Updates on how to follow the team during the race will be published on the official social media channels of the team.