It will be for having lived its history and for the many riders and sports directors that it has donated to world cycling, when we learned that to the Castelli 24H of Feltre a team made up of former Liquigas riders would have raced, we strongly wanted tell his return.
It was nice review in a group Dario Mariuzzo and hear his voice again, as well as recognizing the faces of the boys who, wearing that shirt, told stories of races and dreams. And since it seemed clear that the life of the party was somehow Alan Marangoni, we were curious to talk to him to get him to tell us the behind the scenes story.
Who came up with the idea?
The idea came to Giovanni Lombardi, who had been thinking about doing this since last year. But having the idea is one thing and organizing it is another, in fact I thought of calling them allThe point was that Sagan had to participate with Sportful, because he is one of their ambassadorsHe could have gone with Paolo Kessisoglu's team, which has a noble purpose but is full of celebrities, or Liquigas could have been revived and in the end that's what happened. We arrived in the right 12. Then Nibali did a few laps with us, while with Oss we didn't succeed, because they made him shoot all night and he was exhaustedHe took a picture on stage and then left.
Who was sensationally missing?
It would have been nice to have Viviani, but the regulation prohibits the presence of active professionals, while until some time ago, one per team could participateCaleb Ewan was at the limit, but he said he quit and they admitted it. After all, we did it in a joking way, but it was an official amateur race in all respectsThere were some very aggressive people, who set the lap record in the history of the 24 Hours, people who were really fast. And for this reason in the end I didn't even call EliaA maximum of 12 riders could race, and the only exception was Nibali.
What was the reaction of the kids you called?
They said yes right away. The only ones who said no were busy. The two who were most disappointed not to be able to run were Cataldo and Gasparotto, who were out with their teams. The incredible thing is that amadio he received confirmation that he could use the name Liquigas a month before, so they had to make the jerseys in record time.
We always meet at the races, but was this reunion also an opportunity to share some particularly funny anecdotes and memories?
It was nice above all talk to Mariuzzo, also about some things that happenedI filmed Dario in a video where He makes fun of Sagan because he got off his bike and was finished, dazed from the effortPeter initially tried to lead the race, as long as he had the legs. And when he came down, he was exhausted and started replying to Mariuzzo that he would have liked to see him. And Dario, laughing, she prodded him saying that no one would see him, because he would run at night.
How to go back to the old days?
The thing that worked very well was precisely the fact that we were all very close, very similar, with the same way of jokingMany had raced in a team together, while I, for example, had never raced with Pellizotti. But I discovered a way of doing things that was very close to the group.I don't know if others would have integrated in the same way.
Was Bennati not there?
I called him, but he ran with Kessisoglu. I called Nibali and Oss, but they had also committed to him and we didn't think it was right to ask them to give notice at the last minute.I also called Capecchi and Vanotti, but they were busy. If everyone I called had shown up, I would have needed at least two teams.
If they really do get Mapei back together next year, then they'll have to call in all the former Mercatone Uno players too...
That would be wonderful, actually. Let's see how it goes next year, it seems that Red Bull will take over everything or so they sayLooking back now, it was one of those things that's best done when the opportunity presents itself, because you never know what might happen in the future.
