Less than a week after taking his first win in the rainbow jersey, Rui Costa will be back in action when he tries to defend his Portuguese time trial title tomorrow. He leads the Lampre-Merida campaign at the national championships, with the team also fielding a strong roster for the Italian road race championships.

LAMPRE-MERIDA will monitor four Countries during the National championships weekend: Italy, Portugal, Slovenia and Poland.

On Friday 27 June, Rui Costa will be back in competition after the victory in the Tour de Suisse. The world champion aims to realize another hattrick after the one he got in the Swiss race: he'll compete in the Portuguese time trial race that he has already won twice.
On the 32.2 km course in Soito, one of his opponents will be teammate Oliveira who won the title in 2011.

In addition to Rui Costa, Mattia Cattaneo demonstrated his talent in time trial in Switzerland, so he's ready to face the Italian TT race, that will take place on Sunday 29 from Taio to Malè. Valerio Conti will be the second LAMPRE-MERIDA rider to participate in the time trial.

Sport directors Vicino and Marzano will take care of the blue-fuchsia-green selection for the road race (220,5 km): at the start in Malè there Bono, Cattaneo, Conti, Dodi, Mori, Palini, Pozzato and Wackermann will line up for a very interesting summit finish in Fondo.

After having obtained, in the early days of June, the 4th place in the Slovenian time trial championship, Jan Polanc is ready to try an assault the road race that will take place in Gabrje (11 laps of 15 km of lenght each, total lenght of 165 km).

LAMPRE-MERIDA will monitor also Polish national championships in which Niemiec will race on the 220 km course in Sobotka.