With a team mostly made up of climbers and sprinters, Lampre-Merida were not among the favourites for the Worlds team time trial but the Italian team did surprisingly well to finish 15th. The team even had bad luck as they lost one of the key riders, Mattia Cattaneo, before the halfway point.

While some teams specialize heavily in the team time trials, Lampre-Merida have a more relaxed approach to the special discipline. Lining up Winner Anacona, Roberto Ferrari, Rafael Valls and Jose Serpa alongside specialists Nelson Oliveira and Mattia Cattaneo, the team weren't among the favourites in yesterday's World Championships.

However, the team did surprisingly well and were in top 10 contention for a long time. However, a kidney colic took Cattaneo out of the race at the midpoint, leaving the team with just 5 riders. In the end, they dropped to 15th.

"The fact that we suddenly lost Mattia still before midpoint, definitely influenced our performance," explained sports director Joxean Fernandez Matxin. "In the first part of the route we had times that we placed us near the top ten, so we were doing a good performance.

"Unfortunately Cattaneo had this unexpected illness: his retirement forced us to reorganize, each of the five remaining riders had to do longer pulls, and after that Ferrari swung off before the long climbs as we had planned. We had to be careful pedaling on a regular basis to reach the finish with all four riders.

"I congratulate our riders who were able to grit their teeth after these sudden difficulties and helped to achieve a decent performance, given the circumstances of the case.

"Thanks to the intervention of the medical team andDr. Guardascione, Cattaneo has passed the acute phase of colic and, on his return to Italy, his condition will be evaluated carefully."