Giro d'Italia. Tour of Italy

RCS has released the names of the twenty teams invited to the upcoming Centennial Giro d'Italia with two more teams likely to be selected later. 14 of the 18 ProTour teams were selected; missing are Cofidis, Euskaltel, Française des Jeux and Fuji Servetto. Euskaltel were dreadful at last year's Giro so it's not surprising they were omitted this time around. Previous Giro winner Stefano Garzelli and his Acqua and Sapone squad earned a wild card after missing out last year. This year's controversial omission is Italian national road champion, Filippo Simeoni, who rides for the continental team, Ceramica Flaminia-Bossini Docce. Not surprisingly, CSF-Navigare, the team of Emanuele Sella and other suspended dopers, was also left out.

Diquigiovanni-Androni held their team presentation in Italy. Pictured left, squinting into the sun, are the two stars of the team: multi-Giro winner Gilberto Simon and new addition, classics specialist and last year's Paris-Nice winner, Davide Rebellin. Both turn 38 years of age this August, so it will be interesting to see whether they've still got it. Simoni in particular had a very quiet 2008 season, although he did get a belated, unofficial stage win in last year's Giro with the late season doping suspension of Emanuele Sella. Expect Rebellin to mix it up in the medium mountain stages and Simoni to be a factor in the full mountain stages at the Giro this May.

the next Giro will pay homage to Fausto Coppi's epic 1949 stage win from Cuneo to Pinerolo by using the same course for stage 10 next May. Coppi finished 11 minutes ahead of second place Gino Bartali on the 250k stage, 60 years ago, after a 192k solo break. It wasn't just one stage that was memorable that year, in fact, the battle between Coppi and Bartali extended for the entire three weeks producing one of the greatest Giros ever. VeloPress translated old newspaper dispatches and weaved them into a book published in 1998; however, it's now, inexplicably, out-of-print at this important time.