Sonny Colbrelli He had spotted him before anyone else. Before anyone else, he had realized that the boy with the kind face also had excellent legs. Roberto Reverberi He has a few anecdotes in his pocket and now that Sonny, despite himself, has said enough to the heart problems we know well, the time for memories begins.
And Reverberi doesn't skimp. The sporting director and manager of the Bardiani Csf Faizanè He talks about it with pleasure. Laughter, scolding, potential…
Roberto, how did you get to Sonny?
We caught him even before he went to the OintmentAs a junior he had practically already signed with us. Luca Mazzanti and Gianluca Giardini recommended it to us. "Look, this kid is promising," they told me. We trusted him and signed him after a season in which he finished second, I don't know how many times.
He was already collecting them back then…
He lost a lot of races, but he was always in front. When we had him train with us, he almost won his first pro race right away.
Tell, tell…
It was the Gran Piemonte, if I remember correctly. It preceded the Lombardia by a couple of days, and the peloton was already focused on the Classica delle foglie morta. At the meeting I gave him the homework and I didn't say anything to him. So he asked me, "And what do I do?" "You have a free hand; if you can, you can run away." So 4-5 riders came out and he wasn't there. I called him on the radio and asked him why. At which point he made one of his usual bursts and came back alone to the attackers. The breakaway was gone. The group was thinking about the Lombardy. I passed with the team car when... Virgil Rossi, on the radio, he says to me: «Roby, stop, Roby stop, they've taken the wrong road».
No, what bad luck!
By the time they realized it and turned back, they had lost a lot. At that point, the group, having regained their range, began to race and caught up with them. But of that group, Colbrelli was the fastest. Not to mention that We arrived on a short climb. It was the ideal ending for Sonny.
How was Sonny on the team?
A generous person, sometimes too generous. In those years we also had Modolo that was going strong, But Sonny was no exception. I often told him he could have run for him, but he preferred to put himself at Modolo's disposal and maybe lead the sprint. In general, he always did what I told him. He wasn't a "hothead," and he always remained humble. And he still is.
But sometimes he must have made you angry...
Well, it particularly freaked me out after a Beghelli GP. Now we laugh about it, but we were fighting for the Italian Cup. And it was important because it guaranteed the wild card for the Tour of Italy of the following year. We didn't need the win so much as the points. That's why I told the boys to sprint in threes: Colbrelli, Piechele and Ruffoni. And you know that there's always been some tension between Colbrelli and Ruffoni.
Why?
They were both from the same area, they had fan clubs, they'd been fighting each other since the youth categories. And that day they got stuck on who should throw the sprint for the other. Colbrelli said Ruffoni should throw it. The fact is that there a twelfth place would have been enough. I'm going to collect the charts and I see that He finished 18th. When I got to the bus, I don't know what I said to him. We lost the Italian Cup by one point to Neri Sottoli.
It's Colbrelli, come on! He was still a duckling, not a swan...
True. And there's another story, this one really funny – and in fact Reverberi laughs as he tells it – about a Tour of Oman. It was one of the very first races of the year and Sonny appears a bit chubby. He "got a few words" from me, but my… father He was really into it. He absolutely killed it. One evening we were all at a table together and there was sparkling water. He was filling the glass. At which point my father blurted out, “Drink more, you’ll explode.” And Sonny replied, “Bruno, it’s just water.” But he told him with such a face that we all burst out laughing.
We can imagine…
And it doesn't end there. You know, when you go to these long-distance races, the organizers give you the cars. And they're identical. You don't get used to them right away. So the next morning he gets the wrong team car: instead of riding with me as usual, he gets into my dad's. A two-and-a-half-hour transfer, the longest of the entire trip. When he got off the bus: "Oh, Roby, you could have told me you'd changed cars!" “Look, it’s you who made the mistake!” I replied. He took so many words that he was exhausted!
Instead, Roby, moving on to more technical aspects, when was the first time you realized that Colbrelli was a real rider?
In general, you can see it right away. And it was the same with him. But I remember a particularly tough stage of the Giro where he was caught only at the end. He was in the breakaway, making a fast run. It took the best Santambrogio, who was later "caught," and Nibali to catch him. And that arrival was tough. It was raining, freezing cold all day.
True, it was going strong in the cold.
You remember the Sanremo of the snow, right? He gets to the bus and says, "But why did they stop us?" There were frozen riders everywhere. He was in short sleeves, without gloves, without shoe covers. He couldn't feel anything.
At first, more or less jokingly, we talked about his many second-place finishes, but then over time he improved... How did you try to correct him?
He often made mistakes. Many times he'd sprint at 700 meters, sometimes even when he was being marked. Or when he had to move, he didn't time it right. I tried to make him understand, but it wasn't easy, especially if they realized you had some and were being marked. But you learn from your mistakes. And that's why I say that sometimes being in small teams helps you grow and develop. You have your chances, you make mistakes, but you learn to take the race…
Look Roberto we share, we talk about it often and also Bragato (partly) resumed the discussion yesterday…
Always this rush to go to a WorldTour, sometimes even just for an extra 10.000 euros. And for what? To go and pull... but There's time to shoot. Then you end up doing just that. Instead, wait a bit and move up to the WorldTour as captain. Watch ciccone For example, those who stayed with us for an average of three years have always done well in bigger teams. Finetto, for example, he was really good but he was in a hurry to go to Liquigas and got lost.
Are you surprised that Colbrelli has reached that level over time?
Absolutely not. No surprise there. As I said before, you can see a rider right away. And despite his many youthful mistakes, he was a rider. And a rider, if he has no problems, you can see him from the first few months of training. In Sonny's case, He just needed to tweak something tactically. He also understood that being thin was important and valued himself. And it wasn't easy because he was neither a rouleur nor a pure sprinter. And seeing him up there was also a great satisfaction for us.
