Patxi Vila will be part of the coaching staff of Tinkoff-Saxo in 2015. The 39-year-old ex-professional will be one of the new faces in Oleg Tinkov's team that will be led by Alberto Contador and Peter Sagan in 2015.
After two years at Specialied, Patxi Vila makes the jump back to the professional peloton where he will start the next phase of his career. Biciclismo reports that he will travel with the rest of the team to Africa. From November 1, he will try to reach the summit of Kilimanjaro together with the rest of the staff of Bjarne Riis' squad at their first training camp.
The experience he has gathered while working as a technician at Specialized, bike supplier for Astana, Tinkoff-Saxo and Omega Pharma-Quick Step, is his man asset in addition to his career as a professional rider from 2001 to 2012 where he rode for teams like Banesto and Lampre. Vila will be working as athletic director and speaks five languages, Basque, Spanish, French, Italian and English and has started to study Russian.
In his professioal career, he won a stage and finished second in the 2006 Paris-Nice and that same year he was ninth in the Giro d'Italia. A positive for testosterone test in 2008 cost him a two-year suspension which was later reduced to 18 months. He tried to return to the pro ranks, riding for De Rosa in 2011 and Utensilnord in 2012.
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