Gianni Savio leads is Diquigiovanni team onto the stage. (Image credit: Sirotti)
Michele Scarponi (Diquigiovanni) and Gianni Savio.(Image credit: Isabelle Duchesne)
Flamboyant team manager and Procycling columnist Gianni Savio has announced a new primary sponsor for his Italo-Venezuelan team. Replacing Diquigiovanni PVC Serramenti as his main backer in 2010 will be current secondary sponsor Androni Giocattoli.
“We are very proud to present the leading toy manufacturer as the primary sponsor of our team,” Savio told Tuttobiciweb, adding in typically effusive fashion: “Our friend, Mario Androni, is a great cycling enthusiast and a real gentleman. In the two years we have worked together we’ve obtained some prestigious victories. With the team that I’m now building with Marco Bellini, we believe that we can offer further cause for excitement.”
Savio’s team won three stages at this year’s Giro d’Italia as well as the Tirreno-Adriatico title claimed by Michele Scarponi, who remains as one of the team’s key riders for next season. Alongside Scarponi, Savio will have Francesco Ginanni, Colombian climber José Serpa and Swiss time trial champion Rubens Bertogliati.
There are set to be at least two new arrivals on the squad in the shape of new pro Damiano Margutti and former Française des Jeux rider Matthew Wilson, who rode two Tours and two Giros for the French team. Wilson moved on to Unibet.com and has spent the past two seasons with US continental squad Team Type 1.
Savio expects to name a new secondary sponsor of his squad and further rider reinforcements as he puts together a team he hopes will be 18-strong as it heads into the new season.
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Peter Cossins has written about professional cycling since 1993 and is a contributing editor to Procycling. He is the author of The Monuments: The Grit and the Glory of Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races (Bloomsbury, March 2014) and has translated Christophe Bassons' autobiography, A Clean Break (Bloomsbury, July 2014).
