La Selle Italia Guerciotti has been an absolute reference in Italian cyclocross for many years and as the season approaches The team has given itself a fresh makeover, to continue to collect successes in Italy but also to try to climb positions in the international hierarchiesIt is from this premise that the return of the Italian champion Gioele starts after two years. Bertolini and already from the first premises, with the third place in the first outing in Switzerland at 1'20” from the Swiss winner Kevin Kuhn and 1'05” from the other Swiss Timon Ruegg (in the opening photo), it is clear that the path is mapped out.
«With Gioele we have set up a project aimed at making him return to the position he had reached in the overall Top 10 of the World Championships – says the technical manager Alessandro Guerciotti – he rejoined the group as if he'd never left. Let's say we're picking up where we left off with renewed enthusiasm."
Bertolini is coming off two difficult seasons, during which winter preparations never went as planned...
Our goal is to dose it in the right way to make it grow gradually. The best is yet to come at the beginning of 2022, with the Italians as their first objective towards a World Cup where they can return to their former levels.We are confident, his final MTB season was good and he must continue on that path without stress.
The team, however, is not centered around Bertolini…
No, we have a very compact team. With Gioele there will be DorigoniWe have the best two Italian elite players on the same team and we think that internal competition can only do them good. Coming from his first season in MTB Marathons, he now has to translate these renewed resistance skills into cyclocross which has a decidedly different duration and therefore we also need to check how to recover its innate explosiveness.
In the women's field, what do you expect from Realini?
Gaia comes from an extraordinary season on the road, but this year will change a lot for her: first of all she will no longer have at her side Baroni, so the team logic will change, since in the past season it happened that one or the other had to run together when the other was on the run. Now she will be free to run her course.
The results achieved on the road place many expectations on her…
We trust that the results achieved will give her that extra mental energy, that awareness needed to continue improving. I'm telling the truth: I am convinced that Gaia can achieve results even better than Baroni, provided that he can improve his running tactics where he is still a bit lacking, but with By Tano they are working on this too.
Are there any other purchases?
We brought Samuele with us Lion, ready to face his penultimate year among the Under 23s, we have followed him for a long time and with attention and we believe that it has great room for improvement, so much so that it becomes the benchmark for the category, even more so considering that Fontana is in his last year before moving up a category. Without forgetting that among the U23s we also have Augustine e Faith, both in the blue circle. Then there's Eros Cancedda, which can surprise among the juniors and Federica Venturelli, but here we are talking about an absolute phenomenon…
Tell us more…
I was amazed to see the results of this girl among the studentsHe wins in every discipline, which is unusual in Italy. I'm convinced that even in cyclocross, despite his first year, he can truly surprise everyone.
A team that can truly pull off a clean sweep in every Italian event, with the Italian Championships leading the way…
It always takes a lot of luck to get days like this, It's clear that we want to emerge everywhere and we have the opportunity to do so.In some categories we will start as favourites, in others as important outsiders, but we will compete in every single race.
Despite having a fairly long roster that covers every category, it is clear that the new distribution of international races creates some difficulties, especially with the "extralarge" version of the World Cup...
The cyclocross calendar is becoming increasingly similar to the road, with World Tour events and other races. Here we will usually have the World Cup on Sunday, brought forward by the Superprestige on Saturday, therefore taking up all the weekends. International races are mainly used to gain experience: we intend to compete on the Cup circuit as much as possible with Bertolini, Dorigoni, and Realini, who is the one who needs it most to grow. Since we don't have ranking ambitions, it's clear that in the case of some races that we particularly care about (first and foremost the three international ones, namely our Mom and Dad Guerciotti Trophy, Faé di Oderzo and Brugherio) we will privilege the Italian calendar.
Objectively, how much does managing a team like this, the closest to professional status, require?
A lot of things, before, in my father's time, were almost all delegated to the rider. Today you need to have a full staff at your disposal, including a base in Belgium with campers and local staffThe expense is enormous; if you look closely, the differences with a World Tour team aren't that great. Except for the budget, of course...
