“Over the past decade, [nous avons] lost [notre] identify. » The Lombard Luca Guercilena made this bitter observation, in June 2020, in an interview at the specialized site follower. Like others before him, the general manager of the American training Trek-Segafredo was trying to understand the causes of the crisis affecting Italian road cycling, one of the most emblematic expressions of which has been in the absence, since 2017. , transalpine formations in World Tour, the elite of the discipline. “I won’t be the first to say it, but it’s a real shame: there was a time when we had ten top teams, it seems like an eternity”he summarized.
Some have however tried to stop this slow decline, like Paolo Bettini, Olympic champion (2004) and double world champion (2006, 2007), one of the faces of the golden age of Italian cycling. At the end of 2013, when he handed over his apron as national team coach, “le Grillon” teamed up with Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso with the ambition of building a team worthy of the top of the world hierarchy. Without success.
In 2016, while the Lampre-Merida team was living its last hours in the World Tour, it was Vincenzo Nibali’s turn to try to save the Italian presence in the elite. The Sicilian, who then runs for the Kazakh formation Astana, has serious arguments: he has just added a second Giro to his list, after winning the Tour de France two years earlier. Again, the attempt ended in failure. He will eventually turn to the Bahraini monarchy.
“Very few local businesses capable of investing”
Over the past decade, cycling has changed its face. It has become international. Its funding too, now mainly based on States and multinationals. A look at the current World Tour formations allows us to take the measure: UAE Emirates is supported by the most important Emirati bank; Astana is supplied directly by the Kazakh government; heir to the historic Rabobank, Jumbo-Visma is sponsored by one of Northern Europe’s most famous software companies, while Ineos is the UK’s largest private company.
With a few exceptions, the budget of a first division training today amounts to tens of millions of euros. “The cost to support a World Tour team is very high”recognizes Paolo Bellino, general administrator of RCS Sport, the managing company of the Giro.
“The investment crisis, after the glorious era of Saeco, Mapei, Lampre, Fassa Bortolo and Liquigas, must be seen in a context where there are very few local companies capable of investing in this new form of cycling”argues Matteo Monaco, the secretary general of the Italian Society for the History of Sport (SISS).
Investing in cycling does not create much added value
Italy, whose small and medium-sized enterprises constitute the economic backbone, was one of the countries most durably affected by the “great recession” of 2008, then by the Covid-19 pandemic. However, investing in cycling does not create much added value and, sometimes, even a great season is not enough to cover its costs.
The doping cases that have marred part of Italy’s cycling past have not encouraged risk-taking either. The “Giro Blitz” in San Remo in 2001, the “Oil for Drugs” affair in 2004, or even the decline, then the sudden death of rider Marco Pantani in the same year, have “in a way, undermined and changed the popular feeling in Italy towards cycling”concedes Mr. Monaco.
The paradox is that the country remains one of the nations that provides the most elite runners with 54 of the 530 members of the World Tour in 2022, behind Belgium (66) and France (57). “The Italians are everywhere! In the management of the teams too », insists Paolo Bellino. In Astana, they even outnumber the Kazakhs.
A “generation gap”
Matteo Monaco tempers: “You have to look at relative values, rather than absolute ones. » While the proportion of Italians in the peloton has remained relatively constant over the years, their role has changed. “The best currently, such as [Filippo] Gana, [Matteo] Trentino and [Alberto] Bettiol, often found themselves with the status of servant [équipier au service d’un leader] »recalls the Secretary General of the SISS.
From 2000 to 2010, Italian cyclists had won nine Giros, a Vuelta and nineteen “monuments”, the most prestigious one-day races on the calendar. During the following decade, the Azzurri won three Tours of Italy, one of France, one of Spain and five monuments, but of these ten successes, six were obtained by Vincenzo Nibali alone and the 3and victory recorded at the Giro by Michele Scarponi (died in 2017) is only due to the disqualification of the Spaniard Alberto Contador.
“It is true that we are not living the best period”, concedes Paolo Bellino, of RCS Sport. But for him, the matter is above all a “generation gap” and a bit of “bad luck”. As proof: Sonny Colbrelli, whom some saw becoming the spearhead of transalpine cycling, after his victory in the European championship and on Paris-Roubaix in 2021, suffered a cardiorespiratory arrest at the end of the first stage of the Tour of Catalonia, March 21. The sprinter-puncher from Bahrain Victorious – who also became a climber during the Tour de France 2021 – will no longer be able to run in his country due to the installation of an internal defibrillator.
Paolo Bellino prefers to bet on the development and the attractiveness of the National Tour, while waiting for the emergence of the next great transaplin champion capable of shining in the most prestigious races. “In the Italian mentality, cycling is above all the “Giro d’Italia”acknowledges Matteo Monaco. To rekindle the passion for the champion, it is necessary for a cyclist to emerge from the stage races, perhaps a little daring, like a Don Quixote who knows how to inflame the spirits, who can fight against the windmills represented by the [Tadej] Pogacar, [Primoz] Roglic, [Wout] Van Aert and [Mathieu] Van der Poel. »
Luca Guercilena is convinced that Italian cycling also needs a top-level team capable of representing “a virtuous example that could bring confidence and optimism”. For this to become reality, insists Matteo Monaco, it takes an ambitious project “not only economically, but above all technically: long-term work with young people, investment partnership of several companies and new sponsorship of cycling”.
What if salvation came from former national team coach Davide Cassani? In January, the latter confided in the columns of The Gazzetta dello Sport its desire to launch, from 2023, a team on the model of the Belgian Alpecin-Fenix of Mathieu van der Poel, the current best formation in the second division. A team with “a strong image, an emblematic runner and guaranteed invitations to the races”. But, above all, according to Davide Cassani’s wishes, “with an Italian soul”.
Three Italian second division teams at the start of the Giro
Three Italian teams – Bardiani CSF Faizanè, Drone Hopper-Androni Giocattoli and Eolo-Kometa – are well on the trip to Hungary, where the departure of the 105 was relocated on Friday May 6and Tour of Italy. But they only owe their participation to the goodwill of RCS Sport, the company managing the event. None of its teams has World Team status, which guarantees access to the most prestigious competitions on the calendar. Although playing in the second division (ProTeams), they would not have been able to benefit from the invitations automatically allocated to the two teams of this level which achieved the best performances last season – the Belgian teams Alpecin-Fenix and French Arkéa-Samsic. . The latter preferred to decline, offering the organizers of the Giro the option of inviting a third team of its choice for this 2022 edition.