Gazprom-RusVelo, have been given a wild card by RCS Sport for the upcoming Giro d’Italia which will be held on May 6th to 29th.
"Giro d’Italia 2016 will be the first race of the World Tour in Gazprom-RusVelo history.
"It is a great honour for the whole team», general director of Gazprom-RusVelo, Renat Khamidulin, said. "But this is also a great responsibility. We represent a single nationality team and this participation is an opportunity at the highest level. It will be very nice debut on Italian roads, in the Country considered the heart of cycling. We’d like to thank RCS Sport for their trust in our team and we thank our sponsors for their support too. This is a great incentive to do well in the coming months».
The director of the Giro d’Italia, Mauro Vegni, explained the choice of the organizers and said: "In recent years we have followed the philosophy of supporting the Italian cycling movement and - at the same time - enhance the requests from teams around the world. So we wanted to protect the Italian cycling movement but also look to international development, which is one of our goals. A concept that we apply to all our races and one of the pillars of our strategy for the final choice of the wild cards."