Lopez's dismissal is a tile that has shaken the environment quite a bit AstanaThe Colombian was sent away after the discovery of new elements that would show his probable connection with Marcos Maynar, a doctor who is under suspicion of doping. In the beautiful hotel with a park and swimming pool overlooking the sea, he continues to be talked about, even if now with the same low-key joke: it just wasn't needed. Suddenly, the team that won the Grand Tours with Contador, Nibali and Aru, that fought with Landa, Lutsenko and Fuglsang, finds itself without a leader for the stage races. Thinking about Giuseppe Martinelli without a ranking man After so many years of career, it almost seems unnatural.
«I actually think it's quite strange – says Martinelli, opening the meeting between Zanini and Maini – but I'll have to get used to itI'll have to change my mentality a little, I'll go to the races less. Also because as time passes, new people and mentalities arrive, so it is right to leave space for them».
When something like this happens to Lopez, what are the reasons why one feels bad?
It may seem strange, but first of all you feel bad about the way the information reaches you, which are too many and come before you, who are directly involved, know anything. It's something that doesn't exist, but unfortunately that's the world. Regarding Lopez's speech, I have no problem saying this: The only person who knows what really happened is Lopez and no one else. We discovered everything else step by step, moment by moment. You can't add anything, because others have already added everything.The day it all happened, some of my friends sent me Spanish, French, English, and German newspapers, and Lopez had only been gone an hour.
How do you stay?
Your morale is at rock bottom. Even though I've been through a lot, because I've been in this world for too many years, It always hurts because it means that people still haven't understoodAnd unfortunately, there are still more. And when you think it's the last one, there's always another.
He would have been an important piece for this team.
He was coming off the 2021 season with Movistar which hadn't gone as it should have. He came back here and we welcomed him with open arms., convinced that they can still come up with something. We have been betrayed, that's the reality..
You spoke again about what's left, what do we save from what was there before?
The world moves on, but it's not that my thoughts are distorted by those of young people. However we always try to make these two souls coincideI'm lucky enough to have been here for many years, to know my environment well and therefore they respect me for who I amIn short, as long as we can, we stay here.
Can we think of starting a new cycle with young people? Garofoli, to name a few...
In my opinion – Martinelli specifies – not everyone is Pogacar or Remco. Garofoli is coming off two somewhat strange seasons. First Covid, then the heart problem. Let's hope everything is okay and then... day by day we will try to truly create somethingIt's too early to say whether he's a classics or Giro rider, especially since he's never ridden in a real stage race. Let's say that in my opinion he has a good head, but cycling has really changed. There is battle from kilometer zero at the finish. There are people breaking away wearing the yellow jersey. Sometimes I'm amazed that I still am. But these are things that make you thinkRunners are much stronger, there's more specialization, there's more research...
Hasn't it always been this way?
The search for the best result has always been there, as have the rivalries. But everyone had their own little garden to tend.Those who prepared the big stage races were not very interested in the rest. If you go for a race now, you'll see that Vingegaard prepares for the Tour, but in the meantime wins the Basque Country. Or Van Aert who goes to do the classics, then wins the stages at the Tour as if it were nothing.
Is making teams more difficult?
I was talking about this a little while ago with one of our sponsors, and he asked me which are the strongest teams in the world. Some have, first and foremost, the budget to hire the best rider, the best trainer, the best technician, the best in every area. There are... teams that start with young players and try to bring out something important, which is what I've always liked to do. And maybe they even take a young coach, train him, and make him better. But of course, when you come up against those realities and you're younger, you have to try to make the most of what you haveThis is perhaps the gamble we at Astana are about to make. Our team is certainly not among the top teams, and I don't want to say we'll be on the defensive, but we'll really try to see. if we are able to bring out the best in everyone.
A sort of all for one and one for all?
There are riders who in my opinion were accustomed to doing a certain job for others and then pulling in the oarsIn the evening, we toasted because Vincenzo or someone else had won, and that was fine. Now let's see if they're really capable of coming up with something good. Even just being able to say that we broke away, tried to do our best, achieved a placing… This is the challenge we face.
It's more of a psychological rather than an athletic job, in this sense...
It's a mix, but The head certainly counts more than the legs, because you really have to create something for yourself. Maybe someone has lost this aptitude and someone has never even had it.Maybe someone else was born a gregarious guy. Now they have the chance to make something of themselves. I'm telling the truth, I don't think it's going to be easy.We don't have a magic wand, but maybe we'll discover that something can be done.
In your opinion, considering the health problems he's had, does Moscon fall into this category?
We took him for that. The first thing we told him when he arrived was that In whatever race he may go, he will have carte blanche. In fact, sometimes we'll even run for him. That's what he's always missed.It's a shame we've had a very unlucky season.
How is he now?
Motivated, just like he was last December. In January, however, he was a wreck and he dragged himself along like that until October.The first real day he got off his bike and told me he had a good feeling was at Bernocchi, which was October 3rd. And so We convinced him to go to Malaysia, saying that we would leave from there to get here in start over properly. There have been moments when he didn't even reply to your messages, because he didn't know what to sayAnd it was also difficult to say something to cheer him up…
You mentioned the many roles within teams: can the sporting director still make a difference?
Certainly less. Obviously. I don't mean to say that my hands are tiedBut now, before you do anything, you have to talk to a lot of people. And every time you talk to someone, they change your mind or you align yourself a little with theirs. I used to go to sleep, I woke up in the morning with the strategy I had studied before going to bedI went to the riders and explained to them how we would run. Instead now you compare yourself with too many people and in the end many times they take away a bit of what you had thought. It's even happened that they've turned it completely the other way around. Because they tell you that that rider isn't feeling well, that it's not a good idea to do a certain thing... And at a certain point you ask yourself: what do I do now?
What happens if you do as before and impose your idea?
I say that among many, maybe I'm still the only one who comes down and still has that idea. The problem is that many times you find yourself in front of the rider who has spoken to the others and when you look at their faces in the meeting, they are perplexed or unconvinced. Before you took them wherever you wanted, because in the evening I went to my room, talked to the rider and at most the doctor would come by to ask him if he needed something to help him sleep.
Not now?
Adesso as soon as you arrive at the hotel, the race analysis is already thereHow much you spent, how much you didn't spend. What you should eat, what you shouldn't eat. The doctor comes by and brings you what you need to drink because you have consumed a certain amount. It all helps to improve, even if too many things in your head confuse you. In my opinion, what the rider is suffering from now is precisely this pressureThe fact that you always have someone telling you something and you have little left of your own.
Luciano Pezzi, when introducing the 1997 Mercatone Uno team, said that Pantani would be the leader, but Martinelli would be the captain. Is that no longer possible?
This It depends a lot on the team and what you managed to create.. Or from what others have created around you. Now the team is made up of many components, whereas before there were only the athlete and the sports directorThe example is what will happen tomorrow morning…
What?
If you come here tomorrow morning, you will see that the program has everything the boy will have to do written down in detail. Instead, when I handed out the notes it said: wake up, breakfast, training. The sporting director was truly the beacon, now he is a member of the team.
Will you really follow less than usual?
I will definitely go less. My work on this team has become a bit of a sideline.I try to do a little more logistics. Of course, when I get on the flagship, I'm in my own kingdom. I find my way of doing things, my way of acting.I'm still a bit authoritarian. But there are many other people who work for me. I'm not the best; there are others who are much better. It's right that they have their space.
