Marco Saligari – The Commisar's Report

Behind the wheel
Photo: © Tim Maloney

Marco Saligari was a pro for 12 years, where he earned the nickname “Il Commisario” for his ability to astutely read a race and provide leadership on the road for his team-mates. Since the beginning of this year Marco has been the director of sport for Colnago-Landbouwkrediet, a squad of 23 riders, most of whom are “neoprofessionisti” or young riders. Saligari will be writing a column this year for Cyclingnews.com

Index to Marco Saligari diary entries

Welcome to the big time, boys

May 17, 2002: Fossano, Italy

We're at the Giro d'Italia now... finally! But first I have to tell you a little about the Tour of Romandie, the race we did just before the Giro.

Romandie. Well it wasn't so lucky for us; it rained or snowed or was lousy weather on five of the six days of the race and I was afraid that some riders might get sick before the Giro. Otherwise things went pretty well for Colnago-Landbouwkredeit with a few good stage placings. We're getting there...

Bileka, one of our young Ukrainians was checking out the prologue at Romandie and he said to me "oh I can pedal through that corner and I'll do a good time..." I told him, "watch it; be careful since you have the whole race in front of you."

When he tried to pedal through the corner during the prologue, he crashed hard and afterwards, he told me, "you were right," as our team doctor took an hour to work on him after his crash! "These things happen", I told him.

During one stage of Romandie, it was so cold I had to give my coat to Van Hacke, one of our Belgians, who had a cold crisis. I had forgotten that you could suffer like that on a bicycle!

Euro-Giro

Streel's escape
Photo: © Sirotti

The Giro d'Italia... As you know, Giro edition 2002 went from Holland, across Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany and France, but now we are back in Italy. Today, rest day, I have to tell you about the impressions of our young riders of the first five stages. It was an important experience for these guys; they were all a bit timid and nervous because it was their first big experience at the top level of cycling -- a Grand Tour! Finally to be there with Cipollini, Garzelli, Simoni and many others; riders that up until now they have only seen on TV and in cycling magazines.

But this feeling has passed and now these young guys are growing with experience every day that passes. Like Popovych, who was in a good break after seeing the example of his team-mate Streel's 162km solitary escape. Those things have given us good morale now. Plus I have to talk about our material; thanks to our sponsor Ernesto Colnago we have great bikes like the C40 B-Stay and we are testing some new super-light carbon fiber wheels from Ambrosio. So I have to say as we start the second phase of the Giro d'Italia, we're really positive.

On the rest day, I went along with the riders on my bike to be close to my guys, to listen to them, to sense their moods... and I wanted to see I could still keep up with them after not too many recent rides myself. How did it go for me? It could have been worse!

A prestissimo

Marco