2011 Geox–TMC season Manager Mauro Gianetti One-day victories 1 Stage race overall victories 1 Stage race stage victories 3 Previous season
The 2011 season for the cycling team, its last, began in February at the Gran Premio della Costa Etruschi and ended in October at the Tour of Hainan. With new financial backers and a greatly improved roster over their meager 2010 season, the team had hoped to retain UCI ProTeam status in the offseason. Instead, they rode as a UCI Professional Continental team, meaning that they had to be selected by the organizers of any UCI World Tour event if they were to compete. This included each of the season's Grand Tours. The team's manager and license-holder was former Liège–Bastogne–Liège winner Mauro Gianetti. Though both Geox and TMC expressed desire to replace him with former manager Álvaro Crespi, since the team did not attain ProTeam status, nothing came of this during the season. Crespi held an official role with the team as a consultant.
For the second successive year, the team's roster was drastically changed, though in contrast to 2010, many top-level riders joined the team for 2011, including Denis Menchov and Carlos Sastre, who between them had won all of cycling's Grand Tours. The 2011 season added another Grand Tour winner to the team's stable, as Juan José Cobo was the surprise winner of the Vuelta a España. The overall, a stage, and three classifications at the Vuelta provided for the vast majority of Geox-TMC's victories in 2011, as they had not won any race prior to the Vuelta for two months, and only one in the preceding four months. Neither Menchov nor Sastre had any wins in 2011.
Geox withdrew sponsorship after the 2011 season, later paving the way for the team to collapse.
2011 roster Ages as of January 1, 2011.
Riders who joined the team for the 2011 season Rider2010 teamTomas Alberioneo-proMauricio ArdilaDavid BlancoPalmeirasJuan José CoboDaniele ColliDavid de la FuenteFabio DuarteXavier FlorencioDmitriy KozontchukMarko KumpDenis MenchovMatteo Pelucchineo-proDaniele RattoCarlos SastreMarcel Wyss
Riders who left the team during or after the 2010 season Rider2011 teamJosé Alberto BenítezErmanno CapelliManuel CardosoEros CapecchiMarkus EibeggerTabriz Petrochemical Cycling TeamTom FaiersTeam Wonderful PistachiosDavid Gutiérrez PalaciosBidelan-KirolgiEnrique MataNoneIban MayozNonePedro MerinoMichele MerloMartin PedersenAitor PérezJohnnie WalkerFly V Australia
One-day races Before the spring season and the races known as classics, the team was active in the Vuelta a Mallorca series of one-day races. After the team's best rider outside the top 50 in each of the first two races, Durán featured highly in the Trofeo Inca after pulling away from the main field on the descent of the final climb of the race, the Puig Major, along with rider Ben Hermans and 's Xavier Tondo. With remaining, the trio were a minute clear of the field, and were left to fight it out for the race's honours, where Hermans won ahead of Durán and Tondo. The following day, Cheula was part of a five-man breakaway in the Trofeo Deià that remained out front for , but ultimately the race came down to a sprint for victory, which was claimed by 's José Joaquín Rojas. Cobo was the best of the team's riders, as he finished in third place. Ratto finished tenth in the Gran Premio dell'Insubria-Lugano at the end of February, before Duarte finished second the next day, in the Gran Premio di Lugano.
Spring classics Neo-pro Pelucchi took the team's first – and ultimately, only single-day – win at the Clásica de Almería in late February, coming home first in a full field sprint. In April, Ardila finished tenth in Klasika Primavera, while Ratto finished second to rider Santiago Pérez in the Gran Premio de Llodio, and Ardila also finished inside the top ten. The team also had two riders place within the top six of the following day's race, the Vuelta a La Rioja, as Ratto finished fifth and Felline sixth, within a field of around 20 riders, eight seconds down on race-winner Imanol Erviti for the . Ratto completed the team's first half of single-day races with eighth place in June's Giro di Toscana.
The team also sent squads to the Gran Premio della Costa Etruschi, Trofeo Palma, Trofeo Cala Millor, Trofeo Palmanova, Montepaschi Strade Bianche, Milan–San Remo, the GP Miguel Indurain and the Philadelphia International Championship, but placed no higher than 13th in any of these races.
Fall races In a full field sprint at the end of July's Gran Premio Nobili Rubinetterie – Coppa Città di Stresa, Colli was the team's best placed finisher, taking eighth place on the line. In the following day's Coppa Papà Carlo element to the race, Felline finished 15 seconds down on rider Simone Ponzi in ninth position, just beating 's Charly Wegelius. In August, Ratto placed highly in the Coppa Ugo Agostoni and Trofeo Melinda races, taking seventh and fourth places respectively. Colli was tenth in the Gran Premio Industria e Commercio Artigianato Carnaghese towards the end of August, eighth in Paris–Brussels, after Ratto had made his way into the breakaway, and seventh in the Gran Premio Industria e Commercio di Prato, both of which held in September. The team's last notable results in a single-day race were seventh and ninth places for Felline and Cobo – after a spell in the breakaway – in the Memorial Marco Pantani race, and eighth for de la Fuente in the Coppa Sabatini five days later.
The team also sent squads to Prueba Villafranca de Ordizia, the Clásica de San Sebastián, Circuito de Getxo, Trofeo Matteotti, Tre Valli Varesine, the Coppa Bernocchi, the Grand Prix de Fourmies, the Giro dell'Emilia, the Gran Premio Bruno Beghelli, the Giro del Piemonte, the Giro di Lombardia and the Chrono des Nations, but placed no higher than 11th in any of these races.
Stage races The Vuelta a Murcia was the first race of the season for co-leaders Menchov and Sastre. Sastre lost 37 seconds on the flat first stage, but Menchov made all the selections and finished with the overall contenders at the front of the race. In stage 2, Alberto Contador beat Menchov and 's Jérôme Coppel on a downhill finish, after having been first to the top of the Alto del Collado Bermejo. Menchov finished third in the final day time trial, securing that same position on the event's final podium. The squad also won the teams classification. Duarte showed his climbing prowess at the Giro del Trentino, winning stage 3 which finished with the first-category ascent of Fai della Paganella. He also outkicked 's Tiago Machado in view of the finish line, as the two of them finished three seconds clear of the next group on the road.
In July's Tour of Austria, the race splintered on the second stage, a summit finish to the Kitzbüheler Horn. Sastre and Menchov both attacked out of the lead chase group, after a number of riders had reached the bottom of the climb with an advantage of several minutes. Sastre fared better of the pair, as he finished fourth, 1' 22" down on stage winner Fredrik Kessiakoff (). Wyss tried to take a stage victory the following day, having been part of a 13-man breakaway for much of the stage, but fell metres short and was swept up by a further 23-rider group which included four of his team-mates. After Ratto placed fifth on stage 6, Sastre moved into third place overall after 's Mauro Santambrogio, a rider not known for his time trial ability, lost sufficient time on stage 7 to fall from second place to sixth overall. Menchov moved into the top five with his time trial placing, and both riders held their respective positions to the end of the race. In the Brixia Tour later in July, Felline finished third on the opening stage, before winning stage 2a, leading home Colli in a 1–2 finish to a 30-rider sprint. Colli took another second-place finish on stage 3, and a fifth place on the final stage, to win the points classification.
At August's Vuelta a Burgos, Menchov took fourth place on the opening stage of the event, losing out in a sprint with Sergio Pardilla of the ; Cobo and Blanco also finished inside the top ten, several seconds later. The next day, Cobo again finished well inside the top ten, with a fifth-place result, and Felline led home an eleven-rider group for eighth place. After an average team time trial in which the squad ranked eighth of the 15 taking part, Cobo placed fifth once again on the fourth stage, with Blanco and Menchov taking their second top-ten placings of the race, in eighth and tenth places respectively. Cobo made a bid for victory in the final stage, but was out-sprinted to the line by rider Mikel Landa, but still did enough for second on the stage and an eventual third-place finish overall.
The team also won lesser classifications at the Tour of Oman, the Tour de Romandie, the Circuit de Lorraine, and the Tour of Hainan. The team also sent squads to the Tour of Qatar, Vuelta an Andalucía, Rutas de América, the Volta a Catalunya, the Settimana internazionale di Coppi e Bartali, the Tour of the Basque Country, Vuelta a Castilla y León, Vuelta a Asturias, Vuelta a la Comunidad de Madrid, the Tour de Luxembourg, the Tour of Slovenia, the Tour of Austria, the Danmark Rundt, the Tour of Elk Grove, the Tour of Utah and the Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda, but did not achieve a stage win, classification win, or podium finish in any of them.
Grand Tours As a Professional Continental team, Geox-TMC needed to be selected by the organizers of any of the Grand Tours in order to participate. They were selected to ride the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España, but not the Tour de France.
Giro d'Italia
Menchov was the squad's leader at the Giro, with Sastre riding in support, and added help from Blanco, Valls and Wyss. Also named to the squad were the team's Colombian pairing of Ardila and Duarte, Cheula and Kozonchuk. The team's struggled in the stage 1 team time trial, as they came home 18th of the 23 teams, 53 seconds off the winning pace set by ; as a result, Menchov and Sastre were left handicapped in the general classification, losing time to many of the other overall contenders. Duarte and Valls kept their two protected riders clear of any danger up to stage five, where Duarte finished second to 's Pieter Weening, leading home a number of riders eight seconds behind. Duarte moved up to 13th place overall after his result, and trailed Weening's team-mate Steven Kruijswijk by 15 seconds for the lead in the young rider classification. Duarte abandoned the race three days later, as he was physically unable to carry on in the race, after a stage three incident left him with a knee injury that became worse up until his withdrawal.
A quiet week followed for the squad, before Valls made it into the breakaway on stage 13, as the race headed into Austria to the finish on the Grossglockner. Valls was one of 16 riders to venture out front, but did not last in the breakaway, and ultimately lost almost 19 minutes to stage-winner José Rujano of by the end of the stage. Menchov finished 1' 36" down on Rujano in tenth place, and moved into eleventh place in the general classification, already over five minutes down on Alberto Contador (). Menchov again featured highly the following day, on stage 14 and its finish atop Monte Zoncolan. He was part of a group consisting of himself, 's Roman Kreuziger, rider Vincenzo Nibali and several other riders. Menchov and Nibali both got away from Kreuziger, but Nibali himself attacked Menchov and went clear. Menchov eventually finished the stage in fifth place, losing another 48 seconds to Contador, who was second to 's Igor Antón; Menchov's placing allowed him to move up to seventh overall.