There are apparently more than 60,000 footballers who earn over €300,000 a year. There are fewer than 500 cyclists who can claim this. There are a handful of super-earners who make cycling a sport of princes – while those on the lowest rung of the ladder are the paupers doing all that they can just to survive.
The system doesn’t exist for the riders but for the teams themselves. Riders are part of the business model. And as with all models, some of them are not attractive at all.
There is a spectrum here. At one end you have the likes of Team Ineos, super-business-like and super-funded. At the other? Enter one Gianni Savio, known as the Little Prince.
With a dapper moustache, tailored suits and a diminutive frame, this Italian team owner/manager hasn’t earned that moniker for nothing. He’s also the ultimate survivor and fixer in world cycling, and succeeds in finding money where there just shouldn’t be any.
One way of keeping the ship afloat is to find sponsorship. And in Savio’s case it seems just about anybody can join the fun. For a fee.
His team, Androni Giocattoli, has had more sponsors than just about the entire peloton put together. It has existed under various banners for the last 30 years, the one constant being that it has always had Gianni, a former football agent, at its helm.
In 2012 there were so many sponsors of the team that the actual name was Androni Giocattoli Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni. On TV graphics they always abbreviate the team name to just three letters, which proved something of a problem. In the end they just went with AND. This represented Androni, of course, but it could also have been shorthand for the link between the five main sponsors Androni and . . . and . . . and.
With so many sponsors, the riders’ jerseys looked terrible. A white background with almost every square centimetre featuring the logos of the main sponsors and secondary sponsors. From a distance, it looked like a bad pizza. It’s not much better today.
Still, all those sponsors must be well pleased by his team’s efforts. It’s a magical mix of fading European stars and South American super-kids – all cheap to hire, they get themselves into just about every break going. And sometimes, just sometimes, it seems that Savio might pull off a big trick. Stage 18 of Giro 101 saw Mattia Cattaneo come agonisingly close to a win. He finished third that day on the big ramps up to Prato Nevoso. Maximilian Schachmann won ahead of Ruben Plaza, but the entire commentary team, from all nations, wanted it to be the Androni man.
Gianni’s boy came very close. His team did eventually secure the minor prizes of the Fuga Pinarello for spending most kilometres in the break and also won the Intermediate Sprints competition. But a stage win on a Grand Tour would have been amazing.
Rightly or wrongly, Savio’s team has been linked to or implicated in many dark arts. But he still comes up smiling through a set of teeth that look like he snacks on dark-roasted coffee beans. It’s the only thing about him that is not polished. The cameras love him too. Like a Mafia Don, he says very few words when he nods approvingly towards one of his breakaway men – but that’s enough to draw both the attention of the TV director and an extra effort from his riders.
Maybe if he looked less rakish, people would feel differently about him. But to me he represents the other side of the coin of the Team Skys, Movistars and Bahrain Meridas with their apparently bottomless bank accounts. I’m glad that cycling has him. Without sanctioning any naughtiness here, the fact remains that Gianni has to battle to keep his team alive. It’s how it always was and indeed how it remains for most of the smaller teams. As you now know: there isn’t a lot of money in cycling. The only lolly you’ll find easily is likely to be thrown from a publicity caravan with the name Chupa Chups written on it.
18
Back on the Road
It’s ironic, but when we’re covering a bike race like the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia or Vuelta a España, we rarely, if ever, get to sit in the saddle of a bike. When we’re not actually commentating, most of our time is spent either desperately trying to get some sleep or driving from one finish town to the next. We will cover literally tens of thousands of kilometres in a Skoda Estate car hired out to Eurosport and stuffed with, at times, four presenters and all their accompanying luggage and bulging egos. For various reasons the long journeys are enormous and even the shorter ones seem to get longer as the personalities in the car start to rub.
Leaving the commentary position at the end of the day’s racing, Sean will lead the charge, barging past or cleverly dodging numerous people trying to get an interview or comment from him. As he races down the side streets through the crowds looking for the parked car, I’m trying to keep sight of his calves. They are easy to spot in a crowd because: 1. They’re massive; and 2. They have a ginger miasma surrounding them, which lights up in the sunshine like jiggling beacons. Kelly stopped shaving his legs on retirement. ‘Not doing that bloody nonsense any more . . .’
Jogging along without apparently breathing is the fitter, younger half of the Grand Tour lead team, Rob Hatch.
