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The team has been strengthened for 2007 with the arrival of Jimmy Casper and Arnaud Coyot from France, Italy’s Matteo Carrara, Russian track talents Alexander Khatuntsev and Sergey Kolesniko. Venezuelan climber Jose Rujano is expected to shine in the mountain stage of the major stages and will have quality support from Colombia’s Victor Hugo Peńa. Australia’s Baden Cooke and Britain’s Jeremy Hunt will again lead the team in the classics along with Italian sprinter Marco Zanotti.
Unibet.com is a Swedish UCI ProTeam mainly sponsored by the online gambling website Unibet.com as a continuation of the MrBookmaker.com cycling team. The team rode on the European Continental Circuit, until the beginning of the 2007 season, when they were granted a ProTour licence.[1]
The team leaders are Hilaire van der Schueren, Lucien Van Impe and Willy Geukens, and noted cyclists on the team are Tour de France green jersey winner Baden Cooke, Italian sprinter Mario Zanotti and Spanish rider Luis Pasamontes.
Unibet.com has also been drawn into the Operación Puerto doping investigation. The cyclist Carlos Quesada was named by the Spanish authorities as a patient of Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes and was suspended by the team [2]. Although Quesada had been named, he has not yet been formally charged with doping, which led to the management of Unibet.com to lift its suspension of Quesada two weeks after it was imposed [3]. Nevertheless, the team did not pay the Spanish cyclist his salary, which led to a lawsuit, finally resolved with Quesada leaving the team in exchange for a compensation.
