Tinkoff-Saxo heads to Livigno, Italy to embark on an altitude training camp, where nine potential stagieres and promising talents will join the team. The goal is threefold: to boost the shape of the team riders not racing, to select potential stagieres and to scout and build ties with the rising stars of tomorrow. Head Coach Bobby Julich has directed the effort.
 
“Not many teams have 3,4 or 10 year sponsor contracts, but you have to move forward as if you had”, underlines Bobby Julich, Head Coach of Tinkoff-Saxo, who notes that he spent weeks upon weeks to accumulate knowledge about and select the nine young riders that will join Tinkoff-Saxo in July at the team’s training camp in Livigno.
 
“Ultimately we want to find that diamond in the rough that can be the new Alberto Contador or Mick Rogers. It took a full team effort to identify and analyze these talents from all over Europe. I asked the sports directors to propose potential riders that they knew or might have heard about, and we ended up with a list of 23 riders, which was then filtered down to 9 – but we have our eyes on a lot more guys”, tells Bobby Julich, who is acutely aware of what’s at stake:

“If you don’t invest in the future with a dedicated and long term focus, it will come back and bite you in the end, cycling relies on talents. We’ve been through many changes as a team but I see a stronger and very ambitious organization. Oleg and Stefano Feltrin are the driving forces behind this and we, as coaches and sports directors, are more than happy to bring these ambitions into effect. It has been fun to turn every single stone to find that guy, who just needs a proper shot to prove himself”.

Tinkoff-Saxo will bring 11 of the team’s own riders to the team base in Livigno at 1,816 meters. The goal is threefold according to Julich. To boost the shape of the team riders not racing at Tour de France or Tour of Austria, to select potential stagieres for the second part of the season and to scout and build ties with upcoming riders.
 
“It’s not a secret that we don’t have the youngest team. This is a strength right now, but we need to find the talents that will take over one day. Some of the guys are so young that we don’t consider them for a spot as stagieres, not even next year. Two of them are 18 and 19 and still juniors but we want to start progress tracking them. At the same time, we want to introduce them to the pro life and our team and support them, even though it’s unofficial”, says Bobby Julich, who adds about his own experiences as an upcoming rider:
 
“I had many coaches and I have been to many team camps as a young rider and you sort of self selectively use the advices that benefit you the most. So as a coaching staff, it’s a matter of supplying high quality training advices, but we also want to meet these guys more casually off the bike to spend time together and see if they fit into our philosophy”.   

In 2017, every WorldTour team will be obligated to have a U23- or development team. According to Julich, Tinkoff-Saxo's training camp is another step in the effort to think years down the road.
 
“The raw talent is right here in the cycling community and it’s just a matter of diving in to find those, who can make it to the top, if they get the right guidance combined with their own determination. Our approach is very meticulous; we don’t want to miss a talent because we were too traditional. One or two guys on our 23-rider list came from Oleg’s twitter request – it was not a stunt, we did take that very seriously. We will be turning each stone in the effort to build the strongest team, also in the future”.
 
Tinkoff-Saxo will hold the combined talent and team altitude training camp from July 5thto 19th in Livigno, where the team will take advantage of the many climbs of the region. 9 invited talents, all between 18 and 24 years, will join the 11 Tinkoff-Saxo riders.