British cycling great Bradley Wiggins has labelled the team selected to help him achieve his dream of adding the Giro D'Italia to his Tour de France and Olympic time-trial crowns as as good as the one who helped him to victory in the Grand Boucle last year. The 32-year-old will be backed up by a strong team including Italian Dario Cataldo - 12th in the past two editions - and Spaniard Rigoberto Uran, who was seventh last year and claimed the young rider's title. However, Chris Froome is not in the line-up as he focuses his efforts on the Tour de France.

PARIS (Reuters) - Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi has ended his 18-year professional career during which he claimed 48 stage wins in the grand Tours. "I feel that it is time to take some time for myself and try to find some new challenges," the 39-year-old Petacchi said in a Lampre-Merida team statement on Tuesday. "I gave my best, as I always did in the 18 seasons as professional rider".

Ireland's Daniel Martin, riding for Garmin, won Sunday's Liege-Bastogne-Liege classic race, seeing off Spanish pair Joaquim Rodriguez and Alejandro Valverde after a gruelling 261.5 kilometres. Martin, nephew of former Tour de France champion Stephen Roche, attacked just before the final bend to come through and land the 99th edition of the 'doyenne' of the Ardennes classics.

Italian Vincenzo Nibali underlined his form ahead of the three-week Giro d'Italia by winning the final stage and taking overall victory at the 37th edition of the Giro del Trentino on Friday. Overnight leader Maxime Bouet went into the fourth and final stage, held over 166.8 km between Arco and Sega di Ala, with a 3min 19sec lead on Belarusian Kanstantsin Siutsou of Team Sky and 3:56 on Astana team leader Nibali.