Trio set for Tour Down Under bow

Euskaltel fans will get an early opportunity to get acquainted with the team's new signings next year: Garikoitz Bravo (pictured above), Jon Aberasturi and Juan José Lobato are all in line to debut in the orange jersey at January's first WorldTour race in Australia.

According to the excellently-informed Deia, the three of them are all likely to make the long travel, and will be accompanied by the Izagirre brothers, who should find the course to their liking, as well as Juan José Oroz and Mikel Astarloza. The latter is of course a former winner of the event, having taken his only professional victory in his career at the 2003 edition.

While the team heads and the riders are trying to piece together a tentative racing schedule at the ongoing team concentration in Derio, it's still yet to be decided which of the team's GC riders do which Grand Tour. According to the same paper, Samu has intimated he wants to do the Tour again - which, if confirmed, is slightly surprising, as a Giro-Vuelta double has been mooted for some time. Galdeano is said to be eager to see what Nieve can do at the French GT though, while it's still up in the air what Antón will focus on at this moment in time. What has been decided is that each of them will double up on GCs next year.

The picture is slightly clearer with the Izagirres: Gorka will be back to do the Tour in July, while Ion will take on the Vuelta, and only the Vuelta, after this year's Giro heroics.

In further news coming out of the get-together in Derio, it seems Euskaltel will adopt a model used by many WorldTour teams in 2013: each rider will have one specific sports director to work with - reminiscent of the model used by Team Sky for instance. New DS Óscar Guerrero will be in charge of the riders set to focus on the races and classics in Northern Europe (which is mainly the foreigners), while Samu will work with Gorka Gerrikagoitia, Nieve with Álvaro González de Galdeano, Antón with one or the other.

Picture: Caja Rural