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Old August 5th 20, 09:38 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
Tom Kunich[_2_]
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Default No Italian Teams in the Tour de France!!!!!

On Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 1:13:31 PM UTC-7, jbeattie wrote:
On Wednesday, August 5, 2020 at 10:37:56 AM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 8/5/2020 12:01 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Tuesday, August 4, 2020 at 5:41:34 PM UTC-7, AMuzi wrote:
On 8/4/2020 6:58 PM, Tom Kunich wrote:
I just got another disinteresting copy of Velonews and it showed the teams that will ride the Tour de France. And there wasn't a single Italian team on it. This brings up the question - Are there any Italian based teams anymore? There are a lot of Italian Teams and Ineos is British.

Your question may have no answer or the answer may be
meaningless:

https://www.cyclingnews.com/features...ke-guide-2020/

Riders have mixed parentage, fluid citizenship and even
sometimes dual citizenship so who is Italian?

Bike brands are more convoluted in that, for example,
Bianchi is a Nederlander company mostly selling Asian frames
with Japanese parts. Is that little Red-White-Green sticker
Italian enough for you?


Although 7/11 was an American team they did have foreign riders. Same with Team Motorola. America changed the face of European bike racing buy bringing proper pay to the bicycle racer. You're not suggesting that Italian Teams couldn't bring their own character to the Grand Tours are you? Maybe half of the teams in the Tour are French


I have no idea or opinion.
In fact, I think this entire area of inquiry has become
pointless in our modern world.

related: Pagani uses German engines. It it still 'Italian'?

Trek-Segafredo is half-Italian. https://segafredocoffee.com/

All these teams have licenses and ownership structures that you may or may not see on the jerseys. A company forms to run a team, goes out and gets a sponsor, and when that sponsor pulls out, it gets another sponsor or goes out of business. Mapei was an Italian sponsor of a team formed in Belgium -- that now has Belgian sponsors (Quick Step). Lotto Jumbo NL was Belkin, Rabobank, Novell, WordPerfect, Buckler-Colnago, Superconfex-Yoko and Kwantum-Decosol -- all one company with multiple, succesive sponsors. It was Buckler-Colnago for a period. Hey, it was a half-Italian team! Sometimes companies will just create their own teams or buy a team, so its ownership and not sponsorship. https://www.outsideonline.com/239229...ling-new-owner

The Italian sponsors have not been stepping up, probably since pro cycling is a huge money sponge. Might as well buy advertising on Googlio.

It would be interesting to see how these teams are organized as a business. I've organized some amateur teams as 501(c)(3) and ridden on them under various jersey names for the same club. EF bought Slipstream, but Slipstream cycled through a lot of names, Garmin, Cannondale, etc., etc.

-- Jay Beattie.

Well, you guys have managed o make me lose all interest in the grand tours now.
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