NIPPO Vini Fantini team launches its plea to the FCI and replies to the stamens of the Giro Director Mauro Vegni regarding the team projects.
“We ask the Italian Cycling Federation to act immediately, supporting RCS, in order to ask a waiver to the UCI and enlarge the number of Wild Cards, as done in 2011 for the 150th anniversary of Italy unification. We think a strong act is needed to protect the Italian Cycling movement and give a chance more to a full-Italian team for the 100th edition of the Giro, the edition of the Giro that will unify Italy more than any other before and will expose Made-in-Italy brand to the world. Italian teams are sponsored by many Italian companies, symbolizing Made in Italy, and definitely deserve to be valued in the most popular national event in Italy, at its 100th edition”. NIPPO Vini Fantini’s GM plea is clear: the most important institution in Italian Cycling movement needs to react promptly so that RCS is given the opportunity to give a recognition to at least another Italian team. “I am really astonished FCI didn’t move towards RCS in order to preserve Italian Cycling and Italian projects for the 100th edition of the Giro, as well as the company strategic decisions for RCS for its own future”.
REPLY TO RCS STATEMENTS AND TRANSPARENCY IN CHOICE CRITERIAS:
Francesco Pelosi does want to reply to what stated by Giro’s GM concerning the choices that have been made. On “Gazzetta dello Sport” article by Luca Gialanella Vegni, 19th January, we read: “The status of crisis of Italian cycling movement wasn’t born by the choices of the Giro, but rather by the fact that this movement has been feeding itself from a wrong model: “Either I’m selected for the Giro, either I shut down the team” or else “I’m sorry for Androni, but behind the team a project is needed. Same for Nippo, which I gave trust for a couple of years. My will is that through this team the best young Italian talents are raised: Arredondo, in Nippo’s case, doesn’t make any difference”.
“It is a matter of fact – replies #OrangeBlue GM – that the Giro represents the most important event in Italian Cycling Movement. All the other RCS rides combined, even though they are well-known and create an important audience, can not match a third of the visibility and reach of the Giro. If Italian sponsors decide to invest at a Professional level it is mostly because the investment is aimed to participate to the biggest Giro of its country”.
“On the matter of the project, I personally find it a very offensive statement and I am really astonished about it. NIPPO Vini Fantini has a clear manifesto that since 2015 explains its mission: growing the best young Italian and Japanese talents guided by world-class and experienced athletes, with an International activity, with unrivaled ethics and transparency, managed by new skills till Tokyo 2020 Olympics. The team is built on two historical sponsors that have been investing in Italian Cycling movement for years (Nippo for 28 years, Vini Fantini for 9, one of longest spans of time in Italy) and do grow their investments year on year. On top of these two more have followed every season. We don’t have any spot appearances on our shirts, we don’t make any statement we can’t fulfill”.
“We have 11 Italian athletes, 5 of which are under 26, each of them are exceptional talents in Under 23 category in 2014, now ready for the big jump. We have Damiano Cunego, one of the three Italian winners of the Giro, standard bearer of the values behind a healthy and winning cycling movement, that in 2016 has been wearing the blue shirt for 13 days; we have hired Marco Canola, already stage winner at Giro, 28 years-old, Italian and in full athletic maturity. Should RCS take a look to Internationalization, we have a country as Japan that is investing in Italy and is following us as flag-team of their country and we have Julian Arredondo (one stage and blue shirt in 2014 Giro), pristine talent fully recovered by our technicians. Last but not least, in order to grow our young talents we hired some more experienced riders such as 2013 Italian Champion Ivan Santaromita and Alan Marangoni, both of them with many years of experience in Pro-Tour”.
Even more important, for the Italian GM, is the economical and sport ethics: “We are a 100% Italian company in our management and affiliation (we do pay taxes in Italy) and we never had a single doping case. We are very intransigent on doping, which is why we are the one and only team in the entire world publishing our riders’ biological passports online, aiming straight to the maximum transparency and inflexibility. All this since 2015, all this with a constant activity of communication in order to give proof to it: is it possible that this transparency and inflexibility for doping doesn’t have a specifically weight on the choice and is awarded? Together with all the pillars of a clear, well-structured and long-running project?”
The General Manager ends with these words: "We respected all the skills and indication we have received in these years by RCS, on how to build a team to be invited to the Giro: clear project, young Italian talents, international growth, ethics, no doping. There are other rules? It would be very important to know them, in order to be able to compete at the same level of the other teams, that have international approach as we have."
NIPPO Vini Fantini has the clear objective of reaching Tokyo 2020 Olympics keeping on being Italian. In order to reach this goal, it needs a prompt and strong reaction from the Italian Cycling Federation, in order to work together with RCS to ensure a UCI waiver and add a place to Giro 100, so that it becomes even more Italian: it is the perfect chance for the Italian cycling movement to act as a whole and raise its head up.