As we have informed earlier this week, Johnny Hoogerland and Franco Pellizotti have won the first selection to feature as the Androni-Venezuela leaders in the coming 2014 Giro d’Italia edition. It turns out that team manager, Gianni Savio, has great expectation in regards to his captain’s performances, as he wants to see one of them inside the top ten of the general classification then the Italian grand tour comes to its conclusion.

“As always, our goal is to honor the Giro organizers and prove that we deserved to receive an invitation. We want to win a stage and put Pellizotti or Hoogerland into the top ten of the final standings,” Gianni Savio told Wielerrevue.

The former Dutch national champion didn’t achieve any respectable result so far this season, but apparently the Androni-Venezuela manager supports Hoogerland’s low-key performences.

“I consciously didn’t let him ride the Milano-Sanremo as he wasn’t physically ready and that would have harmed him. Following his long ride at the Camaiore he was dropped in the Strade Bianche and Roma Maxima, so it seemed to me that it was better not to participate in Sanremo.”

The Androni-Venezuela fast finisher, Kenny van Hummel, will not become a part of the team’s roster for the Giro d’Italia, but Savio was full of praise for this season’s performances of the 31-year old Dutchman.

“Van Hummel is a good rider and a great man. I knew Kenny after following races he participated in. He impressed me in the first months already, especially in Malaysia, where he hit the deck and cut his leg pretty deeply during a sprint on the second day. Only one day later he was sprinting again to finish fifth and few days later he won the stage before his compatriot Theo Bos and before quick Chicchi and Guardini.”