Mercatone Uno
Encyclopedia
Mercatone Uno is a former professional cycling team
which was based in San Marino
and then in Italy
. Throughout the 1990s it was one of the strongest Italian cycling teams in the peloton
. The team was sponsored by a chain of supermarkets in Italy.
. Riding with the team Adriano Baffi
won the points classification, or the maglia ciclamino
in the 1993 Giro d'Italia
. During the 1995 season the General Manager of the team was Franco Gini and the directeur sportifs were Antonio Salutini, Franco Chioccioli, Olivano Locatelli and Bruno Vicino. This team closed at the end of 1995 season with the withdrawal of the sponsor: the new team had the same sponsor but was a totally different team.
cycling team at the end of 1996, it was reported that manager Davide Boifava would be building a team around Marco Pantani
with Mercatone Uno as the main sponsor. However Luciano Pezzi became the President of that new team, taking with him as directeur sportif
s Giuseppe Martinelli, Davide Cassani and Alessandro Giannelli and ten of the riders from Carrera including Pantani
. In this way a new team based in Italy was formed with Marco Pantani
as the team leader and which rode Bianchi
bikes. According to former cycling champion Felice Gimondi
the team was built exclusively around Pantani with directeur sportif Martinelli refusing to sign a sprinter as this could have created other objectives of the team. According to Gimondi, in this way the team was conceived similarly to the way the Bianchi cycling team
was conceived in the mid 1940s as a team built around Fausto Coppi
.
In the 1997 season, Pantani finished third overall at the 1997 Tour de France
and won several stages including the stage to the Alpe d'Huez
. The following year Pantani won the 1998 Giro d'Italia
and then won the 1998 Tour de France
- becoming only the seventh rider in history to achieve the Giro
-Tour
double. Pantani dedicated his win to the recently deceased General manager of Mercatone Uno Luciano Pezzi. After achieving this great success, the head of the branch of the Mercatone Uno supermarkets, Romano Cenni, said that the sponsor would remain in cycling as long as Pantani was still cycling. In the 1999 Giro d'Italia
, Pantani dominated the race until he was suspended from the race due to a high haematocrit level. As a result, the entire Mercatone Uno team withdrew from the race. The following year the team won the 2000 Giro d'Italia
with Stefano Garzelli
to which he thanked Pantani for help. Although Garzelli had a contract that run until the end of the 2001 season, he left the team at the end of 2000. When Pantani abandoned the 2002 Giro d'Italia
, there was immediate talk of Mercatone Uno stopping its sponsorship after the 2002 season as the team had not been invited to the 2001
and 2002 Tour de France
. However the team continued during the 2003 season where Pantani rode to 14th overall in the 2003 Giro d'Italia
. The team was disbanded at the end of 2003 due to the probable retirement of Pantani with several riders going to the South African team Barloworld.
Cycling team
A cycling team is a group of cyclists who join a team or are acquired and train together to compete in bicycle races whether recreational or professional - and the supporting personnel...
which was based in San Marino
San Marino
San Marino, officially the Republic of San Marino , is a state situated on the Italian Peninsula on the eastern side of the Apennine Mountains. It is an enclave surrounded by Italy. Its size is just over with an estimated population of over 30,000. Its capital is the City of San Marino...
and then in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. Throughout the 1990s it was one of the strongest Italian cycling teams in the peloton
Peloton
The peloton , field, bunch or pack is the large main group of riders in a road bicycle race. Riders in a group save energy by riding close near other riders...
. The team was sponsored by a chain of supermarkets in Italy.
San Marino Team
The team began as Mercatone Uno-Zucchini in 1992 and was based in San MarinoSan Marino
San Marino, officially the Republic of San Marino , is a state situated on the Italian Peninsula on the eastern side of the Apennine Mountains. It is an enclave surrounded by Italy. Its size is just over with an estimated population of over 30,000. Its capital is the City of San Marino...
. Riding with the team Adriano Baffi
Adriano Baffi
Adriano Baffi is a former Italian bicycle road racer. After his career as a rider, he became a team director. He is the son of Italian bicycle racer Pierino Baffi.Baffi was born in Vailate, Italy...
won the points classification, or the maglia ciclamino
Maglia ciclamino
The points classification in the Giro d'Italia is one of the secondary classifications in the Giro d'Italia. It is determined by the placements in the daily stages, independent from time distances...
in the 1993 Giro d'Italia
1993 Giro d'Italia
The 1993 Giro d'Italia of cycling, the 76th edition of the race, was held from 23 May to 13 June 1993, consisting of 22 stages. It covered a total of 3,703 km, completed at an average speed of 37.723 km/h...
. During the 1995 season the General Manager of the team was Franco Gini and the directeur sportifs were Antonio Salutini, Franco Chioccioli, Olivano Locatelli and Bruno Vicino. This team closed at the end of 1995 season with the withdrawal of the sponsor: the new team had the same sponsor but was a totally different team.
Team built around Pantani
When Carrera Jeans manufacturers stopped sponsoring the famous ItalianItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
cycling team at the end of 1996, it was reported that manager Davide Boifava would be building a team around Marco Pantani
Marco Pantani
Marco Pantani was an Italian road racing cyclist, widely considered one of the best climbers in professional road bicycle racing...
with Mercatone Uno as the main sponsor. However Luciano Pezzi became the President of that new team, taking with him as directeur sportif
Directeur sportif
A directeur sportif is a person directing a cycling team during a road bicycle racing event...
s Giuseppe Martinelli, Davide Cassani and Alessandro Giannelli and ten of the riders from Carrera including Pantani
Marco Pantani
Marco Pantani was an Italian road racing cyclist, widely considered one of the best climbers in professional road bicycle racing...
. In this way a new team based in Italy was formed with Marco Pantani
Marco Pantani
Marco Pantani was an Italian road racing cyclist, widely considered one of the best climbers in professional road bicycle racing...
as the team leader and which rode Bianchi
Bianchi
Bianchi, a plural of bianco , is a frequent proper name; notable people with that surname include:*Andrea Bianchi, an Italian film director*Bianca Bianchi , stage name of Bertha Schwarz, German/Austrian opera soprano...
bikes. According to former cycling champion Felice Gimondi
Felice Gimondi
Felice Gimondi is an Italian former professional racing cyclist.With his 1968 victory at the Vuelta a España, only three years after becoming a professional cyclist, Gimondi, nicknamed "The Phoenix", was the second cyclist to win all three Grand Tours of road cycling: Tour de France , Giro...
the team was built exclusively around Pantani with directeur sportif Martinelli refusing to sign a sprinter as this could have created other objectives of the team. According to Gimondi, in this way the team was conceived similarly to the way the Bianchi cycling team
Bianchi cycling team
Bianchi was an Italian professional cycling team that was sponsored by and cycled on Bianchi racing bikes. A Bianchi cycling team existed in 1899 which implies that Bianchi was sponsoring professional cycling at a very early stage in the sport. It appears that the team existed from 1899 to 1900,...
was conceived in the mid 1940s as a team built around Fausto Coppi
Fausto Coppi
Angelo Fausto Coppi, , was the dominant international cyclist of the years each side of the Second World War. His successes earned him the title Il Campionissimo, or champion of champions...
.
In the 1997 season, Pantani finished third overall at the 1997 Tour de France
1997 Tour de France
The 1997 Tour de France was the 84th Tour de France, it took place July 5–27, 1997. Jan Ullrich's victory margin, of 9' 09" was the largest margin of victory since Laurent Fignon won the 1984 Tour de France by 10' 32"...
and won several stages including the stage to the Alpe d'Huez
Alpe d'Huez
L'Alpe d'Huez is a ski resort at . It is a mountain pasture in the Central French Alps, in the commune of Huez, in the Isère département in the Rhône-Alpes region.-Tour de France:L'Alpe d'Huez is one of the main mountains in the Tour de France...
. The following year Pantani won the 1998 Giro d'Italia
1998 Giro d'Italia
The 1998 Giro d'Italia of cycling, the 81st running of the race, was held from 16 May to 7 June 1998. It covered , in 22 stages, and it was won by Marco Pantani....
and then won the 1998 Tour de France
1998 Tour de France
The 1998 Tour de France, also called the Tour du Dopage , was marred by doping scandals throughout known as the Festina affair, starting with the arrest of Willy Voet, a soigneur in the French Festina team. Voet was traveling into France when he was arrested and found with large quantities of...
- becoming only the seventh rider in history to achieve the Giro
Giro d'Italia
The Giro d'Italia , also simply known as The Giro, is a long distance road bicycle racing stage race for professional cyclists held over three weeks in May/early June in and around Italy. The Giro is one of the three Grand Tours , and is part of the UCI World Ranking calendar...
-Tour
Tour de France
The Tour de France is an annual bicycle race held in France and nearby countries. First staged in 1903, the race covers more than and lasts three weeks. As the best known and most prestigious of cycling's three "Grand Tours", the Tour de France attracts riders and teams from around the world. The...
double. Pantani dedicated his win to the recently deceased General manager of Mercatone Uno Luciano Pezzi. After achieving this great success, the head of the branch of the Mercatone Uno supermarkets, Romano Cenni, said that the sponsor would remain in cycling as long as Pantani was still cycling. In the 1999 Giro d'Italia
1999 Giro d'Italia
The 1999 Giro d'Italia of cycling, the 82nd edition of the race, was held from 15 May to 6 June 1999. It covered in 22 stages. It was won by the Italian Ivan Gotti....
, Pantani dominated the race until he was suspended from the race due to a high haematocrit level. As a result, the entire Mercatone Uno team withdrew from the race. The following year the team won the 2000 Giro d'Italia
2000 Giro d'Italia
The 2000 Giro d'Italia of cycling, the 83rd running of the race, was held from 13 May to 4 June 2000. It consisted of a prologue plus 21 stages, for a total of 3,676 km, ridden at an average speed of 37.684 km/h...
with Stefano Garzelli
Stefano Garzelli
Stefano Garzelli is an Italian professional road racing cyclist. The high point of his career to date was his overall win in the 2000 Giro d'Italia, after a close three-way competition with Gilberto Simoni and Francesco Casagrande.-Career:He started out as being a domestique for Marco Pantani but...
to which he thanked Pantani for help. Although Garzelli had a contract that run until the end of the 2001 season, he left the team at the end of 2000. When Pantani abandoned the 2002 Giro d'Italia
2002 Giro d'Italia
The 2002 Giro d'Italia of cycling, the 85th running of the race, was held from 11 May to 2 June 2002. It consisted of a prologue in Groningen plus 20 stages with two rest days, for a total of 3,354 km, ridden at an average speed of 37.567 km/h. It was won by the Italian Paolo...
, there was immediate talk of Mercatone Uno stopping its sponsorship after the 2002 season as the team had not been invited to the 2001
2001 Tour de France
The 2001 Tour de France was particularly difficult, having contained a 67-km long team time trial, two individual time trials and five mountain-top finishes on consecutive days, the second of which being the Chamrousse special category climb time trial. Thus, all the high-mountain stages were...
and 2002 Tour de France
2002 Tour de France
The 2002 Tour de France started in Luxembourg on July 6, 2002, and ended in Paris on July 28. France was visited counter-clockwise, so the Pyrenees were there before the Alps...
. However the team continued during the 2003 season where Pantani rode to 14th overall in the 2003 Giro d'Italia
2003 Giro d'Italia
The 2003 Giro d'Italia of cycling, the 86th running of the race, was held from 10 May to 1 June 2003, consisting of 21 stages for a total of 3,472 km, ridden at an average speed of 38.828 km/h. It was won by Gilberto Simoni....
. The team was disbanded at the end of 2003 due to the probable retirement of Pantani with several riders going to the South African team Barloworld.
Famous Mercatone Uno cyclists
- Marco PantaniMarco PantaniMarco Pantani was an Italian road racing cyclist, widely considered one of the best climbers in professional road bicycle racing...
- Michele BartoliMichele BartoliMichele Bartoli is a retired Italian road racing cyclist. He was a single-day race specialist, winning three of the five Monument races. Bartoli won the UCI Road World Cup in 1997 and 1998.-Biography:...
- Francesco CasagrandeFrancesco CasagrandeFrancesco Casagrande is an Italian former professional road racing cyclist. Casagrande was a professional cyclist between 1992 and 2005.-Biography:He is a proven performer in the Grand Tours and the major one-day races...
- Dmitri Konychev
- Bruno Leali
- Andriano Baffi
- John TalenJohn TalenJohn Talen is a former road racing cyclist from the Netherlands, who was a professional from 1987 to 2000...
- Roberto PetitoRoberto PetitoRoberto Petito , is an Italian road bicycle racer.Petito was born in Civitavecchia. His most important win came in 1997, when he won the Tirreno–Adriatico. He has also finished in the top five in classics such as the Ronde van Vlaanderen or Paris–Roubaix, as well as the overall in the 2006...
- Mario CipolliniMario CipolliniMario Cipollini , often abbreviated to "Cipo", is a retired Italian professional road cyclist most noted for his sprinting ability, the longevity of his dominance and his colourful personality. His nicknames include Il Re Leone and Super Mario...
- Dario FrigoDario FrigoDario Frigo is a former professional road bicycle racer. Frigo gained notoriety in the 2005 Tour de France when, lying 52nd overall racing for Fassa Bortolo, he was arrested before stage 11 after French police found ten doses of EPO in his wife's car...
- Eddy MazzoleniEddy MazzoleniEddy Mazzoleni is an Italian professional road bicycle racer who most recently rode for UCI ProTour Astana Team....
- Stefano GarzelliStefano GarzelliStefano Garzelli is an Italian professional road racing cyclist. The high point of his career to date was his overall win in the 2000 Giro d'Italia, after a close three-way competition with Gilberto Simoni and Francesco Casagrande.-Career:He started out as being a domestique for Marco Pantani but...
- Daniel Clavero
- Sylvester Szmyd