While most teams will use the Giro del Trentino to finalize their preparations for the Giro d'Italia, Team NetApp-Endura will be at the start of the Italian race with a different mission. The team wants to use the race to clock up the first kilometres in the high mountains with a view towards the Tour de France as the team's biggest star Leopold König returns to competition after a hard block of training.

For many riders the Giro del Trentino is the last test for the soon-to-follow Giro d’Italia. For the NetApp – Endura team, however, the 583-km mountainous 4-stage race represents another milestone in the preparation for the Tour de France. The tour through the North Italian province of South Tyrol opens with a team time trial at Lake Garda. The decision on the overall victory will fall this coming Friday at Monte Bondone, the very last mountain of the tour.

“For us the Giro del Trentino is the first race to be ridden in the high mountains this year. For our riders it serves to take stock of where they stand and also to offer themselves for the Tour de France selection. Therefore it is a very important race for the entire team,” so the outlook of Enrico Poitschke, Sport Director of the NetApp – Endura team.

“We start with a team time trial that we always want to complete at a high level. We've always proven ourselves here in previous years. Then difficult stages follow with long climbs and particularly here we are very well equipped with our team. For this reason our goal for the tour is clear: we will try to win a stage,” Poitschke specifies the objective.

Said team time trial is 13.4 kilometers long and will be carried out on the Tuesday after Easter between Riva del Garda and Arco. The course profile is completely flat, while the route with thirteen 90-degree curves – at least on paper – appears extremely demanding technically-speaking.

Only the first half of the second stage is flat, which runs over 164.5 kilometers from Limone sul Garda to San Giacomo di Brentonico. Two mountain classifications of the second category are ridden already in the middle part, the finish is then located in the Monte Baldo Nature Park after a 14.4-kilometer-long climb.

Only three classified climbs are ridden on the third day of the Giro del Trentino. However one shouldn’t be misled, because the 184.4 kilometers from Mori to Roncone contain very few flat stretches. The final climb – up to 17% steep – is particularly difficult.

With regard to the course profile, the last day becomes even a tick more difficult. Already after about 40 kilometers the peloton will reach the highest point of the tour, the 1682-meter-high Passo Campo Carlo Magno. Even after that it will be mountainous, and the finale will become truly demanding. The finish of the 38th Giro del Trentino is located on the legendary, 1653-meter-high Monte Bondone, a climb of the “hors catégorie”.

“Leo will be returning from a long break and the focus for him will be that he gets his legs in the racing kilometers. The other riders are in good condition and therefore I’m confident that we will ride with great presence. Tiago [Machado] showed good form at the Critérium International and if he brings this with him to Trentino, he can ride along at the front in the overall rankings,” was the assessment of Enrico Poitschke.

Line-Up: Cesare Benedetti, Iker Camano, David de la Cruz, Bartosz Huzarski, Leopold König, Tiago Machado, Jose Mendes, Scott Thwaites