While many have documented the dramatic drop in Italian cycling over the last few years aside from great riders like Aru and Nibali, not many have paid attention to Bardiani-CSF, an Italian Pro Continental team who have taken four Giro d’Italia stages in the last two years.

 

Brunp Reverberi, team manager and whose father founded the team in 1982, says that the team focuses on not only winning, but on doing it clean and showing the jersey at all times. He spoke to Velo News about the team and Italian Cycling in general.

 

“Winning is not the most important thing, not in terms of indicators for the future — we prefer to choose riders who have room to improve when they join us, as opposed to somebody already nearing their potential.”

 

“We’re more interested in riders who are consistent but may win less, rather than someone who wins two or three races in a month before disappearing.”

 

The team doesn’t hire ex-dopers like rival squads Androni Giocatolli and Neri Sottoli do, and is determined to keep things that way, in an attempt to revolutionize and clean up Italian cycling. This was shown after the team got ride of Emanuelle Sella, who took three stages and the Mountain Jersey at the 2008 Giro.

 

“The bio-passport has been an important innovation,”Reverberi said. “At the time, we had nothing like it, no way to control a rider and avoid something like that. After the Sella case we started to think about changing our project, to focus on young riders. We made the decision not to hire any riders with trouble in their past [a policy Team Sky is notable for enforcing]. I guess we were one of the first teams in professional cycling to do that.”

 

Now the team has paved the way for current riders like Domenico Pozzovivo and Gianluca Brambilla, and is led by current riders Manuel Bongiorno, Edoardo Zardini, Sonny Colbrelli and Enrico Battaglin.

 

He puts the great recruiting policy the team has down to their great staff.

 

“Our other sporting director, Mirko Rossato, is a very important part of what we do. He spent a large part of his career in the amateur world, while our coach Claudio Cucinotta has worked with junior and amateur teams in the past. He knows exactly what values to search for in talented riders.”

 

This was shown when the team singed Italian U23 champion Simone Sterbini, who Reverberi said had a deal with the team when he was 17.

 

“He signed a contract with us three years ago [when he was 17] — we had superb reports on him even then,” Reverberi continued.

 

Reverberi can only hope that the team will continue to be as successful as last year, which he says isn’t a given as they lack the big budget and big stars to compete with the WorldTour teams.

 

“Our team doesn’t have the big budget sponsors with the potential to operate at WorldTour level, for example. We have a different kind of project for that reason. For the second year in a row we’re the youngest team at the WorldTour and ProContinental levels and the neo-pros we sign have chances to try their luck and make an impact at top level events almost immediately. You don’t get chances like that at WorldTour teams unless you are a [Peter] Sagan or [Fabio] Aru.”

 

Not that Bardiani didn’t try for several Italians who jumped straight into the WorldTour “I can’t hide that we have tried to sign riders like [Davide] Formolo and Aru in the past,” Reverberi said. “For example, I recall Aru’s former coach Olivano Locatelli delivering great feedback to us. We made different choices like [Francesco] Bongiorno and [Edoardo] Zardini though.”

 

The team ahs made their choices and will stick by them, keeping everyone clean and helping their smaller names establish themselves. This is the way forward for Italian cycling and other teams would do well to copy the Bardiani-CSF model.