By any measure, Alé Cipollini exceeded expectations at the Santos Women’s Tour. The Italian team with the not-so-Italian roster for the UCI season opener scored one stage win, three stage podiums, two classification jerseys and came second overall.
Five of the six Alé Cipollini riders in Australia are new to the team this season with Australians Chloe Hosking and Carlee Taylor, Dutchwoman Janneke Ensing, German Romy Kasper and Lithuanian road champion Davia Tuslaite all part of the team’s plan to internationalise the roster. Anna Trevisi represented the only returning rider from 2016 and the only Italian amongst the team’s Santos Tour Down Under squad.
Hosking, who won stage 3 in Lyndoch, was the team’s marquee new rider last summer and had a hand in choosing the roster.
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“We’re not going to be a big, big team like Boels-Dolmans, but I hope we can challenge those big teams in the races with the strength of the riders that we have,” Hosking told CyclingNews. “It’s a bit like Moneyball. We found some really, I think, underrated riders that can have a really, really great year on a team that gives them more support and more opportunities.”
Ensing was the first amongst the yellow flou squad to embrace those opportunities when she bridged across to a two-rider breakaway on the first stage of the Santos Women’s Tour. Coming across a 22-second gap to put herself into what proved to be the race winning move, Ensing set herself up to stand on the overall podium four days later.
“Getting across that gap, it was hard for me,” Ensing told CyclingNews. “Normally I would go for the win but on Friday, I was very happy with the podium also.”
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