Lampre-Merida will be active in France and Italy this weekend.

On Saturday, the blue-fuchsia-green team will take part in the 9th edition of the Strade Bianche, 200 km from San Gimignano to Siena: the riders will face 9 dirty roads sectors for a total of 45.4km.

The sport director Daniele Righi will lead these riders: Valerio Conti, Ilya Koshevoy, Manuele Mori, Przemyslaw Niemiec, Luka Pibernik, Filippo Pozzato, Maximilano Richeze and Jose Serpa.

“Niemiec and Pozzato will be our captains," sports director Daniele Righi said. "Niemiec has demonstrated his very competitive shape in the past weeks , Pozzato’s skills are very suitable for this kind of race. The team will try to give them the best support, taking into account that Serpa and Conti could also join some attacks in the central part of the race."

On Sunday, the team will be at the start of Paris-Nice, the second seasonal event of the World Tour circuit.

In France, the blue-fuchsia-green riders who’ll be directed by Philippe Mauduit and Simone Pedrazzini, will take part in 8 stages (total of 1.141 km), trying to be prostagonist thanks to Rui Costa, Niccolo Bonifazio, Matteo Bono, Davide Cimolai, Mario Costa, Nelson Oliveira, Ruben Plaza and Rafael Valls.

During the French race, the riders will face one prologue and one mountain time trial (Col d’Eze), four stages that could be suitable for the sprinters or for the attackers and two stages that will be pivotal for the overall classification.

Rui Costa will be the team leader for the general classification while Bonifazio and Cimolai, who both recently obtained victories, will focus on the sprints. Valls, winner of the tour de Oman, is facing a cold and his conditions need to be checked.