New main sponsor to be announced soon, team says delay in applying for Giro d’Italia invite is not a problem
Commenting on its absence from the initial list of eight teams in the running for one of the wildcard places in the Giro d’Italia, the Yellow Fluo team has said that it fully intends applying for an invite, and will do so shortly before the cutoff point for entries.
“We have time until the 15th of December to send our marketing project and our candidate for the Giro d’Italia and all the other races of RCS Sport,” team spokesman Francesco Pelosi told VeloNation today. [Note – RCS spokesman Matteo Cavazzuti told VeloNation this week that the cutoff date is December 18th – ed.]
“It is simple – all the teams have to complete the dossier and send to RCS. We have time to do this, we have another twenty days. We will do everything at once then, the candidature for all the races. Waiting for the last week is better for us.”
The team confirmed today that news about its new sponsor is coming soon. This year the team was known as Vini Fantini Selle Italia, but lost its main backers due to two high-profile positives.
Former Giro winner Danilo di Luca was ejected from the Giro after it emerged that he had tested positive for EPO in a pre-race test. After the event finished it was announced that stage fourteen winner Mauro Santambrogio had a positive A test for EPO in a random control taken on the opening day of the race.
It was a further blow to the image of the team and to the event itself, even if the Italian media reported in September that Santambrogio’s B sample had tested negative. This means that the rider could go unsanctioned.
Asked if those positives could affect the chances of the team being selected by RCS Sport for the Giro or any other if its events, Pelosi said he hoped that wouldn’t be the case.
“I don’t know if it will affect things,” he told VeloNation. “We are a professional team and as was the case in the other years, we need to conquer the trust of RCS. Normally I think it is clear for RCS and also the fans that the problem about the doping of Di Luca and Santambrogio is something that was separate to our management. They are both singular [independent – ed.] issues.”
It remains to be seen if RCS Sport will see it that way or not, but Yellow Fluo will build the best dossier it can to try to earn their trust.
Asked the reason for the delay relative to the other squads who have applied, Pelosi said that there was no need to rush things.
“It is nothing to do with the [undeclared] main sponsor as we have already concluded the negotiations. We simply want to be able to add other ideas to our dossier, which has more or less been finished. Also, last year and two years ago, when we had no problem about sponsors or any other things, we also sent the dossier in the final week.”
Team camp to be held next week:
The Pro Continental squad will soon spend three days with its sixteen riders plus team staff at the Croce di Malta in Montecatini Terme. The camp is being backed by long term backer MacOlive company, and will take place between Wednesday and Friday.
It will involve three days of training, as well as physiological test, technical meetings and training and race planning.
“We will start our work for 2014 season with renewed enthusiasm and a certainty we have made some major changes at the level of preparation and [internal] controls,” said manager Luca Scinto. “I will not be alone in the management of training and next week we will reveal the partners we have chosen. With professionalism and without rushing things, we will speak ‘one to one’ with each rider with careful attention.”