Future - Fabio Aru

Italy is known for it's long cycling tradition. They have the second most important race in the world and cycling history is full of great italian champions. So it's no surprise when you see so many good italian  riders in the peloton, and almost every year young italian riders with great potential show up in the cycling scene. One of those riders is Fabio Aru.

Aru was born in San Gavino Monreale on July 3rd of 1990. He started taking cycling seriously on MTB with 15 years old. And, with 19, in 2009 he turned to road racing. In that same year he started racing in the U-23 cycling scene, with team Palazzago and achieved a good result, finishing third place in Bassano-Monte Grappa. Already he showed his ability to climb.

In 2010 the good results increased. He was 5th in Giro del Belvedere, 4th in Bassano-Monte Grappa, 2nd in Trofeo G. Bianchin and 4th in Giro della Vale d'Aosta, the hardest race of Italy's U-23 season. A climbing talent emerged and people started noticing him. 

The next year a lot was expectead of Fabio Aru and he certainly delivered, achieving 7 victories and bunch of top-ten places. Of this victories one of them was the prestigious Giro della Vale Aosta. In a interview in that same year he gave a interview, where he said that his favourite rider was Alberto Contador and that he wants to win stage races in the future.

In his final year as a U-23 and with the confirmation that he would be signing with Astana late in 2012, Aru maintained his good results. First in Toscana Coppa delle Nazioni, first in Giro della Vale Aosta and second in Baby Giro. Then came August and he moved to Astana as a stagiare. His first race there was the USA Pro Cycling Challenge, and there he showed his immense talent by finishing second on stage 6 of that race.

Aru certainly has talent, now he haves to develop it and commit to the sport. I will be very attentive to his results nex year and I hope that he becomes a champion in the future.

Astana and Fuglsang

Today, Cyclingnews reported that Jakob Fuglsang will be Astana's GC leader for for 2013 Tour de France. This to me is a stupid decision by Astana team manager, Giuseppe Martinelli. It's not that Fuglsang doesn't have quality. He has, and that's seen by his results this year when he won Tour of Austria and Tour of Luxembourg, even though he had problems with his team and Johann Bruyneel.

However, never in his career, Fuglsang has showed the ability to climb with the best. He showed promise in his first year but he never delivered. He's decent but, I think he isn't able to follow the likes of Alberto Contador, Andy Schleck, Cadel Evans or Chris Froome when the "real climbs" come. And you need to do that if you want to place at least in the top ten, especially in next year's Tour, that will favour the climbers. He's a good time trialist and he won't lose much time to the best and will even gain to some climbers who can't time-trial, like Andy Schleck. But that time will be lost in the mountains.

Such a strong team like Astana shouldn't gamble all in a cyclist who, to me, doesn't have the capability to make a impression in the Tour. Vincezo Nibali wants to fight for the Giro, so he's out of the question for the Tour. Maybe Astana could give a joint leadership to Fuglsang and Brajkovic, who was ninth last year. But the last will be helping Nibali in the Giro...