Caisse d’Epargne

The Caisse d’Epargne team dominated the 2008 UCI ProTour standings but finished a close second in the 2009 UCI World Team Ranking. However the French-sponsored but Spanish based team has significantly boosted its line-up for 2010 and will be a threat in both major stage races and virtually any other kind of race.

New riders include Italy’s Marzio Bruseghin, Juan Jose Cobo of Spain, French stage race veteran Christophe Moreau, Colombian climber Mauricio Soler and Anthony Charteau of France.

Bruseghin is a stage race contender in his own right but is also an excellent and generous worker who will be valuable support for team leaders Alejandro Valverde and Luis Leon Sanchez.

Valverde won the Vuelta a España last year and before that dominated the Vuelta Ciclista a Catalunya. In the past he has also won one-day classics such as Liège-Bastogne-Liège and is one of the three stars of Spanish cycling along with Alberto Contador at Astana and Samuel Sanchez at Euskaltel-Euskadi.

Luis Leon Sanchez represents the future of Spanish stage racing at Caisse d’Epargne. In 2009 he won the Tour Méditerranéen and Paris-Nice, beating Contador with an aggressive ride. He will surely develop even more in 2010 and perhaps show if he can be a Tour de France or Vuelta a España contender.

The strong and consistent backbone of the team includes domestiques David Arroyo, Arnaud Coyot, Jose Vicente Garcia, Pablo Lastras, David Lopez, Vasili Kiryienka of Belarus and Colombia’s Rigoberto Uran.

Other interesting riders at Caisse d’Epargne include the young Portuguese talent Rui Alberto Costa, time trial specialist Jose Ivan Gutierrez and sprinter Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil. Their varied talents confirm the depth of strength at Caisse d’Epargne.