THE PORTRAIT: GIANNI SAVIO, OVER 40 YEARS HUNTING FOR TALENTS

MOURNING | 30/12/2024 | 22:41
di Alessandro Brambilla
To retrace Gianni Savio's career, we present this interview conducted by Alessandro Brambilla in 2021, on the occasion of Gianni's fortieth season as a cycling manager.
In 2021, Gianni Savio celebrates his fortieth season as a professional cycling executive. He does so as the general manager of Androni-Sidermec, which he has transformed into a great school for emerging talents.
Gianni, from Turin, 73 years old and carrying his age with great enthusiasm, has always been skilled at developing talents at the beginning of their professional careers: Davide Ballerini, Egan Bernal, winner of the 2021 Giro d'Italia, Andrea Vendrame, and Ivan Ramiro Sosa are just the most recent examples. Savio has a team, but when his former riders win important races with other jerseys, like Bernal with Ineos-Grenadiers, his joy explodes.
Savio began regularly frequenting professional cycling in the 1982 season as a sponsor executive: he was an authoritative representative of Galli (which had distinguished itself years earlier by sponsoring Carlos, Mini Flat, and other foreign teams), a Turin-based company producing brakes and other components for competition bikes. The Termolan-Galli-Ciocc team of manager Bruno Reverberi also had the neo-professional Davide Cassani on its roster.
From 1985, Savio officially became team manager with the Santini-Selle Italia brand, with Cassani and Daniele Caroli as key riders. Savio debuted as a manager with a bang: "Caroli," Gianni recalls, "won the Milano-Torino for me in early March: the triumph in my city brought our group's enthusiasm to the stars. And Cassani showed skill on climbs and in tactical race management. Even then, he was almost a race director, almost a team principal."
In subsequent years, changing the main sponsor (first Eurocar, then Selle Italia), Savio launched Leonardo Sierra and Andrea Tafi into professionalism and developed Hendrik Redant. Tafi raced three seasons for Gianni, winning him six races. "Tafi was strong," Savio maintains, "and as an amateur he had triumphed in a Giro d'Italia stage, but no one was offering him a contract to become a professional. He became my rider in 1989 and won immediately as a neo-pro."
Unforgettable was Tafi's success at the 1991 Giro del Lazio, when the team was branded Selle Italia-Vetta. "Near the Colosseum," Gianni explains, "Andrea triumphed and finished third behind Cassani, who had become our opponent in Ariostea jersey."
Gianni continues listing other performances of his team. "The first Giro d'Italia stage including Mortirolo, albeit from its gentler side, was won by my Sierra in 1990. Mortirolo was climbed by Monno." From '92 to '95, Gianni had ZG-Selle Italia. "Ghirotto, Perini, Faresin, Ferrigato, Colagè, Nelson Rodriguez gave me immense satisfaction in top-tier races."
Ghirotto, for example, managed to triumph in the Oropa stage of the 1993 Giro d'Italia, among other things, throwing Indurain into crisis. Colagè strung together a beautiful series of victories, including the overall classification of a Tirreno-Adriatico. "And Rodriguez," Savio adds, "won me an alpine stage at the 1994 Tour de France, at Val Thorens, ahead of Ugrumov and Pantani."
There's another inevitable recurrence. "In the past, the Tour accepted mixed teams. The last mixed team at the Grande Boucle was my ZG-Telekom in 1995. I had the great Erik Zabel as captain of my team at the Tour. In the mixed team, there were 3 ZG standard-bearers, and the others were all Telekom Germany men."
In 1998 at Selle Italia-Kross, the Turin manager introduced the Latvian Romans Vainsteins among professionals, who immediately won at Larciano. "He was eccentric, powerful, fast." Indeed, in 2000 (registered with Caldirola), Vainsteins became World Champion.
At the beginning of the new millennium, Savio intensified collaboration with South America, becoming national coach of Colombia. "In 2002," Gianni notes, "Santiago Botero won me the professional individual time trial World Championship in Zolder. It's still the only professional road world title for Latin America; it's another record I'm proud of. South American cycling has grown a lot, but other national coaches with professionals haven't managed to win the road world title. And subsequently, I was also coach of Venezuela."
Satisfaction continued with his Selle Italia-Colombia team. Freddy Gonzalez signed the victory in the 2001 Giro d'Italia at Arco after crossing two steep Passes. In 2005, the ProTour - practically today's World Tour - is being launched, and some argue that Professional-categorized teams should no longer participate in grand tours. Someone begins to define ProTour teams as Serie A and Professional teams as Serie B, including Selle Italia-Colombia.
Savio's team reacts, becomes a war machine, and performs a masterpiece in the Alps. Colombian Fabio Parra wins two consecutive stages, Mezzocorona-Ortisei and Egna-Livigno (including Stelvio). Then Selle Italia rejoices for José Rujano's victory at Sestriere, after climbing Colle delle Finestre. Thus, Savio's Professional team triumphs in the 3 major stages characterizing the 2005 Giro, ahead of all ProTour teams, and Rujano finishes third in the general classification and first in the climbers' ranking (green jersey): revenge against the "anti-Professional" is accomplished.
Unfortunately, Rujano proves to be a shooting star: "He had champion potential, but in his extra-sporting life, he was too superficial," Savio specifies, who in subsequent years reinforces the sponsor pool with Diquigiovanni. The roster also becomes more powerful: Alessandro Bertolini wins two Coppe Agostoni and Giro d'Italia stages, Davide Rebellin wins various classics including Flèche Wallonne and finishes second at the Beijing Olympics.
Newcomer Francesco Ginanni proves to be a ruthless killer for a few years and enriches the team with victories. The carefree and altruistic Michele Scarponi, with many successes including three beautiful Giro d'Italia stages, brings immense joy to Gianni. "Now Michele is up there, greatly missed by all of cycling, not just us." Other days of glory are given to Savio by Vicentino Emanuele Sella and Fabio Felline from Turin.
"With me, Felline won 4 races, including a Pantani Memorial. Fabio had managed to win in previous years with Footon and Geox teams. But with me, he perfected himself." The Diquigiovanni team (later paired with the Androni brand) revitalizes Gilberto Simoni's career finale, winning a stage at the Giro del Messico. "Gibo often made himself available to the team. And Franco Pellizotti was very grateful to me, winning the Italian Championship in 2012 with Androni." And Davide Ballerini? "He can win the World Championship in Belgium, I wish him to succeed even though he's now with Deceuninck-Quick Step. And in general, I wish good luck to my other former riders Fausto Masnada and Mattia Cattaneo."
The Savio manager didn't limit himself to managing the road professionals team: "In the winter of 1993-94, I had Paul Herijgers, a very strong Belgian cyclocross rider, and I made him race in Saxon-Selle Italia. In agreement with Bigolin from Selle Italia, I created a joint venture with the Belgian manager Bulens' activity. Herijgers won the Cross World Championship in January 1994 and triumphed in the World Cup classification. It was the first edition of the World Cup: happy to have inaugurated the series of successes."

The last seasons have not been easy, unfortunately, for the Turin manager: first the crisis due to Drone Hopper's failure to respect plans, then the choice to restart from the Continental category with an eye always on young talents, searching for a new talent, always driven by what he called "this damn passion".