We continue our journey with who is not at the club in July Tour de France. After listened to Corratec-Selle Italia it's time to knock on the door Green Project-Bardiani. The sports director Alessandro Donati He's back from the Sibiu Tour, one of the major races outside of the Grande Boucle: he's the one explaining his team's summer plans to us.
Fiorelli Stakhanovite
«In this period of July we are practically divided into groups – explains Donati – so there are those who have done the Tour of Italy and they ran a little more. These guys went straight from the Giro d'Italia to the Italian Championship and are now resting. Except for Filippo Fiorelli who made it all the way to Sibiu. Now, however, both he and the others will rest and then begin preparing for the second half of the season."
Fiorelli will take a break and then head to higher altitudes until mid-August. His Giro teammates, or at least those in that group, are slightly ahead of the Sicilian, having broken away a bit earlier. It's therefore likely we'll see them back in the race a week or so earlier.
«With Fiorelli there will be some of our young people including Pellizzari».
«For the rest, we are still busy with other races, sorting out the other riders. For example, some are competing in China, at Quinghai Lake, and this is a special race. It's tough, but above all it's up high (we reach 4.000 meters above sea level, ed.) and we try to make the most of it from the preparation point of view."
"And then there's the youth group. They'll have the Tour d'Alsace in France and the Sazka Tour in the Czech Republic. In these two races, we'll mix up the athletes a bit, making a mix of experts and the youth group."
New programming
July is therefore an important transition in the season. We run, we recover, we build, and we experiment, including the mixes Donati mentioned. All in all, this is the turning point, and we're inevitably starting to draw some initial conclusions. But above all, we're looking ahead. Especially for Italian teams, from the end of August onwards the Italian calendar is packed with matches.
"The planning," Donati continues, "is done according to the calendar and is set at the beginning of the season, but it doesn't cover the entire year... also because there are inevitably unforeseen events: falls, illnesses, and we have to change something. Furthermore, a team like ours in some cases has to wait for the results of the invitations before planning. from this or that race. Based on these invitations, we then develop training plans and programs. We basically create two- or three-month programs for each athlete."
And here the age-old issue of the difficulties professional teams face in making long-term plans resurfaces, partly due to the limited number of riders and partly due to the issue of invitations. Indeed, at Green Project, the Giro d'Italia is a near-certainty, and this in some ways creates a significant challenge for technicians, coaches, and athletes.
And in fact Donati himself adds: «In our planning, we're first thinking about getting to the Giro d'Italia, and then from there we'll draw a first big line. Not to mention that for us the Giro has to be deserved, so we evaluate our athletes month by month."
Almost from scratch
We were saying that July is a month of restarting, a sort of "winter in the middle of summer," but Donati doesn't entirely agree with this maxim.
«July is a month in which we need to recover, but Don't start from scratch like in the winter. Runners shouldn't be finished, as they say in the jargon. You have to take a break at the right time to be competitive again at the first race, within six weeks."
"I say six weeks because there are two weeks of unloading and four weeks of loading. This time of year, it takes less time to get back to 100 percent."
Finally, a curiosity. But with the big WorldTour teams focused on the Tour, is it easier for the professional teams to win or achieve a good result? Perhaps the teams the WorldTour teams bring to Sibiu or the Tour of Austria are less competitive, not so much in terms of the riders, but in the supporting cast… let's put it that way.
"Unfortunately not: they are not distracted by the Tour! Today," Donati concludes, Every match is like a Champions League final. All the teams want to score points, they want to win. The WorldTours have 30 riders, and in many cases the continentals do too. They mix their athletes, so they have fresh energy, motivation, and they always come to win, never to compete. So it becomes difficult to get results. And this effectively forces us to always be at 100 percent."
