Written by each manager on the Volta thread.
Preview Volta ao Porto
 Team WonderDee - team presentation
A course with three individual time trials and some key mountains to tackle should suit the young swede Bengt Granskog in his grand tour debut. The 23 year old have some tour experience, but only as a team mate two times in Vuelta a Valparaìso.
Granskog will be supported with a group of more experience riders like Ørjan Nyhus, who have finished 4th and 6th in the GC of Volta ao Porto. If Granskog is out of the YC race after the early stages, Team WonderDee could change there captain to the more experience Norwegian.
The two hilly climbers Wallace Dart and Gilbert Ejsmont will play out a key role for Granskog in the climbs. A young Spanish downhiller with the name from two capitals, Santiago Lima are in good shape for the tour, and will guide the young swede safely down the mountains. Last to join the six man squad is the more versatile Frenchman rider Raymond Vigouroux.
Team WonderDeee have depth to their squad, but the Norwegian team’s primary goal will be YC success and individual stage ambitions may have to wait.
41.  Bengt Granskog
42.  Wallace Dart
43.  Santiago Lima
44.  Raymond Vigouroux
45. Ørjan Nyhus
46.  Gilbert Ejsmont
 Willunga Hill - team presentation
The Hill comes to the Volta this season with a somewhat mercenary outlook. The overall goal is quite literally to win as many points and dollars as we can while aiming to put Jerry Tuimavave on the top step of the podium.
Tuimavave has history at this tour. In Season 54, he took 4th overall and 2nd in the YC with a partial TF performance and a team suffering from a lack of unity. This season he comes with his TF due to last the duration of the tour and with the team spirit much better, so expectations are high.
His support squad is very similar to what it was three season back. Indeed three of them are the same: Alexander Tony, Christopher Koopu and Kees Fitzgerald. Like Tuimavave, Koopu has a 2nd in the YC to his name, and both he and Tony have finished in the top 8 before on GC at the Volta. All three will be riding their 4th Volta this season. The remaining man to support Tuimavave in the hills is Russel Dolbel. Dolbel too has ridden this race twice before.
The Hill's mercenary approach is further exemplified by the last name on the team's roster. Josh Ieremia, one of the Hill's big-name time triallists, is in the starting line-up, and also comes with TF. Ieremia is the standout time triallist in this year's tour, and with TF should be viewed as the overwhelming favorite to win at least one, if not all, of the time trials the Volta has on offer. His age, perhaps, is the only thing that casts doubt on the feasibility of such a performance.
The Hill will need a little luck, perhaps, to pull off a GC win and several TT stage wins, but the view is you shouldn't die wondering.
21. Alexander Tony
22. Christopher Koopu
23. Jerry Tuimavave
24. Josh Ieremia
25. Kees Fitzgerald
26. Russell Dolbel
TeamTVM - team presentation
A mix of experienced and rather young riders will try and lead Urmas Haapakovski to podiums and hopefully victories in the sprint stages.
Zhihua, in his 12th season as a Pro, is the most experienced LO as regards participations in Tours (Div1 Germany Tour S51 and Essex Tour S51, Div1.1 Nederlandse S48, Div3 Kangaroo Tour S55) but had so far never made the cut for TeamTVM on a Tour. However, he is expected to help Urmas a lot in windy stages.
Slone, also in his 12th season as a Pro, has only ridden 4 Tours in his long career but is the only rider in the team that knows the Volta roads from his participation two seasons ago. A very devoted LOSP, he is also famous for having placed twice on BA mode on Haute Normandie stages on the same day last season !
Abtato can win races on his own, but is very pleased to join the team for a Tour that suits better the skills of Haapakovski. He was committed to his LOSP job for Lagrasso at Nederlandse last season, and TeamTVM manager expects the same from him in Portugal, as he has been granted captain responsabilities later in the season.
Mejra is quite young but almost already Level 5 xp as this friendly teammate is always on the road (He raced 38 days on S55, 32 on S56, and already 5 in the first 9 days of S57 !). Most notably, he was a valuable part of the sprint train for Lagrasso at Nederlandse Tour last season, and part of FoW S55 winning team.
Grey, in his 15th season as a Pro (!) and in his 3rd full season at TeamTVM, is Haapakovski’s roommate and is entirely committed to his leader, never reluctant to being used as a simple water carrier if needs be. Like Mejra, he took part in Nederlandse Tour last season, and of FoW on S55.
141.  Urmas Haapakoski
142.  Shan Zhihua
143.  David Slone
144.  | | Lorenzo Abtato
145.  Moises Mejra
146. Jonah Grey
 Lokomotíva Zvolen - team presentation
This will be Lokomotíva's second appearance in Volta. Their first one (season 54) wasn't too successful, which wasn't surprising, given that captain and superstar of the team Drahomir Slovak wasn't suited for such tour, wasn't in top form, and was already behind his best years. His best result was 6th place in King's stage, and ended up 12th overall. But in Youth Classification a name from Lokomotiva appeared, too, and it was Eduard Pavelka, who ended up 8th in this competition. Three seasons passed and Eduard is now ready to take on the role of captain, even though he is not suited for this tour as well. But his goal is at least to get results and points for the team in mountain stages, and make better final result than his great predecessor.
Eduard will be in top form, he is almost at the peak of his career (27), and will be supported by team mates strengthened by boost from TS sponsor. And among his team mates we can see a winner of Norway Tour (Holecko), a winner of Race of the Minutemen (Kuzma), two times winner of YC in Vuelta a Valparaiso (Drozd), a winner of VCK Classic, but here just in a basic supporting role (Cervenak), and a promising young team mate almost reaching Drahomir Slovak's level of climbing abilities (Krncan).
Last thing to mention: Lokomotiva originally planned to come here with Júlio Šipoš as captain in TF, and was keeping his TF ready status for two seasons, but a small mistake caused his TF to trigger just a few weeks before Volta, which hurt manager Pierre Mrazique a lot. And that's the reason Lokomotiva decided to go just for mountain stages, not the overall classification.
121. Eduard Pavelka
122. Rado Hole?ko
123. Valentín Kuzma
124. Gusto Drozd
125. Roland ?ervenák
126. Viktor Krn?an
Ello Ello - team presentation
Ello Ello return to the Volta with a genuine contender for the firs time in three seasons. For Ello Ello historically the Volta was the race of Rudi Basa the Slovenian who over the course of his time with the team Basa finished in the top 4 on six occasions and was a regular in the podium. Since Rudi's retirement the team has struggled to impose itself on the race. Two seasons ago the team had dropped out of Division 2 so were unable to compete, and last season with no obvious captain Jochim Donat took the mantle. The team wasn't well set up, sadly Portugal does not play to Donat's strengths and he lacked top form. 13th on GC and 5th on YC with a podium on a mountain stage was the outcome.
One year on and the team is looking a bit more spruced up. Manager, Henri spent the previous 90 days looking for a rider that could be competitive at the Volta, and after a number of deliberations a lesser known Laotian rider. Phongsavanh Phanvathvongsack has one of the longest names in world cycling however historically he hasn't been given much of a chance to lead a team. Pho's biggest break so far came at the S55 Odyssey of the Oryx where he just missed out on a GC top 9. However, despite this Ello Ello see a lot of potential in Pho when it comes to this race, he's not perfectly suited to it, but as one of the most well rounded captains in the race he could push the favorites hard.
Supporting Pho will be one of the strongest set of domestiques. Brock Moeller and Steffe Elssen are the biggest names to have been left out, with preparation for other targets the name of the game for them. Shuang Xing is the biggest name in the support riders. Ello Ello's most expensive transfer has won three races since joining the team during S54 and has already had success in Portugal this season winning Porto GP. Shuang will be in top form for the first 6 (ish) stages with stages 3 and 6 the ones where he will be expected to be a game changer for Pho. As mentioned earlier Jochim Donat has led the team at the Volta previously and finished on the podium of stage 7 last season. Donat has been included in the shortlist of YC contenders but, aside from a disaster for Pho, this is unlikely to be a role he is given. Rounding out the team are a trio of riders, who whilst they may not receive major plaudits ensure that the Ello Ello support is some of the best and most well rounded in the race. Daniel Sammut Castelletti is a former Valparaiso YC winner and GC podium finisher who has since played a major supporting role for the team across a number of tours being a part of Valpariso winner and Volta podium squads in the past. Zhai Wenbin has shown himself in recent years to be a very valuable member of the team and could have (if training had gone better) been an ideal rider for the Volta with some TT ability, Zhai can shepherd Pho through the flat stages and still be a strong helper in the mountains giving the team strong support across the race and has raced every tour the team has entered since the end of S52. Finally Jaime Chico rounds out the squad. Potentially the weakest rider in the team, Chico is a valuable mountain domestique, despite his talent this will only be his third tour and first Volta, but having played a key role in Xing's recent win on Portuguese soil he is not to be ignored.
In short:
71.  Phongsavanh Phanvathvongsack
72.  Daniel Sammut Castelletti
73. Jaime Chico
74.  Jochim Donat
75. Shuang Xing
76.  Zhai Wenbin
 | | href='/?page=Teams&profile=Silenzio'>Silenzio - team presentation
Since many experienced riders said goodbye to Silenzio, the Volta is seen as a tour to build some experience with the new young squad. Due to the many transfers between day 85 of last season and day 15, the atmosphere in the team is still a bit tense and some riders even fear for their own future at the team. The important goals of the season therefor are for the second half in the season, but since manager The Erwinator is an adept of tours, he couldn’t keep himself from registering.
The team will be in service of the new young captain Rajnay Bela. The new Hungarian sprinter, who has been called - prematurely - "the new Florian Akos", found his way to the team after receiving intensive training at Andeby. He will be the captain in the first great tour in the history of the team: never before Silenzio was present in a tour that consists of more than six stages. Hopefully the team will arrive in time for the prologue in Porto, since they will race in Sri Lanka a bit earlier during the day in preparation.
The main goal is to find one or more results in the four sprint stages, most importantly stage 8. The young Hungarian receives support from four Dutch riders and one Romanian. The very experienced Kevin Kolman will guide the team through the stages and is expected to mentor Rajnay. For Tijmen Van Lieshout and Nordin Moerenhout the Volta contains the first races after a period of rest. They will come back to strength and hope to be competitive again in the second half of the season, while helping Bela as good as they can in the meantime. The lead out train is completed by George Neacsu and Twan Fokkens.
161. Rajnay Bela
162.  Nordin Moerenhout
163. Tijmen Van Lieshout
164.  George Neacsu
165. Twan Fokkens
166. Kevin Kolman
Bilsky - team presentation
We arrive in Portugal with Josue Berlanga and Holger Boldsen as joint leaders. Holger is returning after 10th place last season. This time round will be harder however as he battles for the leadership without top form. We hope Josue can pull off a miracle and repeat the performances during his Norway tour win a few seasons back.
We have a strong supporting cast, with Augustin Hofman the best of the rest. Augustin is also a former tour winner, having won the Monte Rosa twice in the past. His recent performances in the Coppa del Don show he’s still got it and can be a trusted lieutenant for our leaders in the mountains.
James Haydon and Philip Rahn hope to stick with the front group on the climbs and maybe try for a stage win themselves later on if our GC hopes have faded. Haydon is on strong form after taking 6th in the Valparasio GC last season, whilst Phil is also looking good after taking a top 3 in the GP Barlavento at the end of last season.
Last up is Davide Moneaole who will provide support when the road goes downhill. The teams downhill captain will be crucial for Josue given his lack of DH ability. Davide has experience leading the team in one day races and will be looking to use his love for racing to strike fear into our GC rivals on the descents of Portugal.
We are looking forward to the race beginning and hope to be in the hunt for a top 9 GC placing after the first few tt’s in the opening week.
Josue Berlanga
 Holger Boldsen
 Augustin Hofman
James Haydon
Philip Rahn
Davide Moneaole
TD rockets - team presentation
The team arrives in Portugal aiming to disrupt the GC.
Gan Han will join the race as the teams leader on the road. He will test himself on select stages and guide the younger team members to the front when the heat is on. We don’t expect Gan to challenge for the GC though, that will be the role of the opportunists.
Addison Stauss showed last season he is capable of becoming Frota’s successor as our GC rider with a strong 5th in the Giro di Montelbano. He further announced himself and his expert race craft to the cycling world with a win at the Lappi Sea GP. Those breakaway skills might be useful if his dreams of a podium can become reality here. The same can be said for Will Plantz, who is our only rider to win a jersey after a successful breakaway with his YC win at Kangaroo Tour 5 seasons ago. He will provide a headache to the other teams as well when the road steepens.
The rest of the team is headed up by Matýsek Lahev who will be a key mountain domestique, with the potential of a free role opening up later in the tour.
Both Gijsbert Zeydeveld and Miguel Lourenço will provide further support in the high mountains... which is where this line up will have their fun.
91. Davide MoneaoleMacau Gan Han
92. Matýsek Lahev
93. Gijsbert Zeydeveld
94. Will Plantz
95. Addison Stauss
96.  Miguel Lourenço
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