Legendary Italian team manager Gianni Savio and his Androni Giocattoli team will not be at this year’s Giro d’Italia after they failed to secure a wild card invitation. However, to celebrate the history of the Corsa Rosa and Savio’s 30 years in the sport, he has drawn up his very personal Giro d’Italia dream team for Cyclingnews.
His nine riders have all ridden with Savio over the years and have won stages or fought for a place in the overall classification. Savio has named Michele Scarponi as his team leader and naturally included several South American climbers, who have often raced with Savio before going on to bigger teams.
Savio has often given riders caught in doping cases a second chance, and he explains in detail why he does it. He has been accused of signing riders cheaply because of their bans, but Savio defends his philosophy, using Lance Armstrong as an example.
The rules:
· Dream teams must feature nine riders, one of which can be the rider selecting the team, in which case they pick eight riders to join them.
· The riders picked must have all ridden with the person picking the team. That means you can’t just pick the eight or nine best riders of a generation.
I’ve been a team manager for something like 30 years. I’m from Turin and proud to be Italian, but I’m also proud to have a very cosmopolitan team. My riders represent my way of interpreting professional cycling. I don’t have a massive budget like some, but I like to think I run a good team that gives riders opportunities to show their talents, especially if they are climbers from South America. I’m known as a ‘Busca Talentos’, especially in Colombia.
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I’ve been going to South America for a long time now and know lots of people who follow the local and national racing scene, and who scout the best talents for me. I then investigate things, study the riders and above all I test the riders in the lab and study their physiological profiles to try to confirm if they’re natural talents or if they are a fraud. Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to be 100 percent sure about a rider, even with years of experience.
I’ve been criticised for giving riders contracts after doping bans, but I think it's only right that we give riders a second chance and I’m proud to have done it several times, including with our current leader Franco Pellizotti. I do it because cycling has gone through some terrible times and often justice in our sport has not been fair. The line between what was right and wrong was often moved depending on the case. Some riders were banned, often for a long time, while others did the same things but got away with it. Some were ‘lucky’ and others were ‘unlucky’.
I think Lance Armstrong is an example of this. He was rightly banned for doping but he has been presented as the person responsible for so many of the problems that occurred during his time. In truth, he wasn’t the only one. His teammates at the time were only given six-month bans because they confessed and helped the investigator. But they did the same doping as Armstrong. I know that’s how the American justice plea-bargaining system works, but I think that it’s unfair. They earned a lot of money thanks to Armstrong but then got off with just a six-month ban.
I say this as just an example and that’s why I believe riders who served doping bans in the last 20 years were ‘unlucky’. They paid the price for so many others who doped but were never caught.
For me there’s a huge difference between that period and the current period now that we have the Biological Passport. I no longer sign riders who have been suspended since the introduction of the Bio Passport because it helps us fight doping so much. If we see some suspicious blood values, we can suspend a rider, as we did with Francesco Reda back in 2013. He was leading the UCI Europe Tour rankings when I suspended him, but if I’d taken him to the Giro d’Italia, he’d have had a stratospheric race. I went against my own interests but did it based on the Biological Passport. I proved to be right because when Reda raced again with another team, only Vincenzo Nibali stopped him winning the Italian national title. Fortunately he was caught and suspended again.
Image courtesy of Pro Cycling Trumps
Team leader: Michele Scarponi
Michele is my team captain, not just because he’s Italian or for the excellent results he obtained when with us, but also because of his charisma and the way he raced. Rujano arguably secured better results by finishing on the Giro d’Italia podium in 2005, but he was totally naïf. He was capable of doing lots of things but being a team captain was not one of them. Michele was an excellent team captain.
I signed him in 2008 after he’d served his doping ban for his involvement in Operacion Puerto. At the time nobody wanted to give him a second chance. Two years later, after he’d won Tirreno-Adriatico, two stages at the Giro d’Italia and finished fourth overall, everyone wanted him and I was unable to match the offers he had. It’s a pity for us but that’s how our crazy world works.
Sprinter: Roberto Ferrari
Every team, including mine, which is usually built around climbers and focuses on winning mountain stages, needs a sprinter in their line-up, and Roberto has a special place in my heart. He rode with us for two years and in 2012 he won a stage to Montecatini Terme.
Sadly, a lot of people remember Roberto’s spat with Mark Cavendish at the 2012 Giro d’Italia on stage 3 more than his victory. That’s a pity because he is a good sprinter and has become an important lead-out rider for Sacha Modolo at Lampre-Merida.
That day in Denmark Robert made a mistake but didn’t want to admit it. He moved across the road in the sprint and brought down Mark and lots of other riders, including Taylor Phinney who was in the pink jersey. There was a huge polemica afterwards and so I had to step in and convince Roberto to apologise to Cav. He didn’t want to do it and so I personally intervened and apologised to Cav and also apologised publicly on television. I eventually convinced Roberto to apologise, too, but Mark was still understandably pissed off with him because he knew he wasn’t sincere. However, Mark actually thanked me and we’ve had a good relationship ever since.
Climber: Leonardo Sierra
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