The athletes of Merida Italia Team 2015 The mountain bike season 2015 is almost upon us, and Merida Italia Team is preparing its athletes in the best way. Here is a brief presentation of all of them, new entry and confirms. It starts from the new entry in the youth crew, Giulia Lazzari and Lorenzo Calloni. Julia was born in 1999 and is from Giussago (Pavia). Comes from the forge of young bikers "Team Cicli Destro" of Pavia, and is recovering well from her experience in triathlon field.
Lorenzo Calloni is a guy who comes from the north of Milan, born in 1999. He comes from two good seasons in cyclocross, where he wore the jersey of Team Cadrezzate (also the national champ one), while in cross-country field was forged by the coach Angelo Zanotti of Team Spreafico. Both of these two riders have strongly wanted the shirt of Merida Italia Team, and this makes happy the whole staff. The main objective of these two youth will be to grow gradually, by taking advantage of the presence in the Team of more mature athletes to improve their performance. In addition to the two new guys is confirmed Vanni Frassoni, Juniores of the first year, present in the team from a couple of seasons. Vanni is a guy of year 1998, who comes from a little town near Pavia. Despite not having an high level palmares, he's working in the appropriate way, and plans to highlight his technical skills to emerge at the national level. The Team is instead composed of five Under23 riders, all who wear the colors of Merida Italia Team already from a few years. The novice of the category is Alessandro Naspi (Juniores Italian Champion in 2014), who will be struggling with the last year of High School, and will also need to address the graduation exam, but being a "horse race", he will not make discounts to anyone. Giole Bertolini don't need so many presentations. The talented rider, orbit stably within the national team, and is undoubtedly one of the strongest athletes in the world of his
generation. With the team last year has won the Under 23 ranking of Internazionali d'Italia Series, but his goals for the coming season are always ambitious, and are targeted to a growth in the field of World Cup.
The athlete from Tuscany Stefano Valdrighi is the guy of the group that for more years has worn the jersey of Merida Italia Team. His performances and results have always been of a high standard, and in recent times have become more and more interesting. Stefano has again two years in the category (the most important), and is sure that will star in battles for the summit. Mattia Setti is the only one of the group that comes from the region Emilia - Romagna, exactly from Castelnovo di Sotto (Reggio Emilia), not too much far from Team's headquarter. With the same age of Valdrighi, in 2014 has shown a significant increase of his performances, which took him up on the podium of the Italian Championship. The Team expects from him to continue on the same path that began in 2014, and seems that also the head coach of the National Team Huby Pallhuber has the same opinion, and wanted Mattia to the training camp of Follonica.
It closes with the Team captain, Lorenzo Samparisi, twenty-year-old athlete that comes from Tirano (Sondrio), Valtellina. Lorenzo is in his last season in the Under 23 category, aware of his own means and of his strong dedication that puts in the preparation. His MTB rider career has been full of ups and downs, but his technical skills are sure, and with the full support of the Team will aim for a season as protagonist. Currently all the athletes are engaged in the winter training session, and for all of them the seasonal debut is scheduled for March 15 in Maser (Treviso) on the occasion of the 18th Gaerne MTB Trophy, first round of the Internazionali d'Italia Series.