The switch to Italy will be interesting, I think it's been a little while since we've had an Italian primary nationality team, I know there's been plenty of secondary focusses there so won't get it all your own way but it's a big enough market I'm surprised nobody's fully committed there in a while.
Well, last year we had Lampre, even in PCT Plus Mercatone Uno and Saeco in CT, but the former didn't even really get started (racing 2 months or so), and the latter stopped after just 1 year.
The year before (2022), there was Strava in PCT, but also just for 1 year (they switched to the U.S. the year after, and then disbanded).
The last Italian PT teams were Generali (matt) and Mapei (Heine) in 2021, who sadly both stopped after that year.
So 2024 was the first year in a while - maybe in the entire MG history - without a team having primary focus on Italy.
In CT, there have almost always been several Italian teams around lately, which brings me to this:
Hopefully you stay away from the recent Bianchi curse! Looking forward to see how the rebuild happens.
Indeed, the two last teams with Bianchi as their primary sponsor (Bianchi - Panerai in 2022, Bianchi - Campagnolo in 2019) both left after just one year, so hopefully it will work better with Bianchi as a secondary sponsor
The switch to Italy will be interesting, I think it's been a little while since we've had an Italian primary nationality team, I know there's been plenty of secondary focusses there so won't get it all your own way but it's a big enough market I'm surprised nobody's fully committed there in a while.
Well, last year we had Lampre, even in PCT Plus Mercatone Uno and Saeco in CT, but the former didn't even really get started (racing 2 months or so), and the latter stopped after just 1 year.
The year before (2022), there was Strava in PCT, but also just for 1 year (they switched to the U.S. the year after, and then disbanded).
The last Italian PT teams were Generali (matt) and Mapei (Heine) in 2021, who sadly both stopped after that year.
So 2024 was the first year in a while - maybe in the entire MG history - without a team having primary focus on Italy.
In CT, there have almost always been several Italian teams around lately, which brings me to this:
Hopefully you stay away from the recent Bianchi curse! Looking forward to see how the rebuild happens.
Indeed, the two last teams with Bianchi as their primary sponsor (Bianchi - Panerai in 2022, Bianchi - Campagnolo in 2019) both left after just one year, so hopefully it will work better with Bianchi as a secondary sponsor
The switch to Italy will be interesting, I think it's been a little while since we've had an Italian primary nationality team, I know there's been plenty of secondary focusses there so won't get it all your own way but it's a big enough market I'm surprised nobody's fully committed there in a while.
Big market but not the biggest amount of riders i would say it does make the most storyline sense though as my only rider to score well this year was Italian so that is what i was going with
Plus Mercatone Uno and Saeco in CT, but the former didn't even really get started (racing 2 months or so), and the latter stopped after just 1 year.
