Marco Velo

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marco Velo Road cycling
Marco Velo at the Tour de Romandie 2010
Marco Velo at the Tour de Romandie 2010
To person
Date of birth March 9, 1974
nation ItalyItaly Italy
discipline Street
Driver type Time trial, start-up
To the team
Current team End of career
function driver
doping
1994 Gonadotropin
Team (s)
1996–1997
1998–2001
2002–2005
2006–2008
2009–2010 		Brescialat
Mercatone Uno-Bianchi
Fassa Bortolo
Team Milram
Quick Step
Most important successes

MaillotItalia.svg Italian time trial champion from 1998 to 2000

Last updated: June 9, 2011

Marco Velo (born March 9, 1974 in Brescia ) is a former Italian cyclist and current supervisor of the Italian time trial .

Velo was able to achieve successes especially in time trials and won a. a. the Italian national championship in this discipline three times in a row between 1998 and 2000. In total, he won ten races as a professional. In addition to these individual victories, he contributed to the numerous successes of other drivers as a driver in sprint trains .

Career

Doping as an amateur

While he was still an amateur , Velo was convicted of doping in 1994 on the occasion of the road world championships in which he had participated in the team time trial. He was banned for two years for taking gonadotropin .

Successful professional debut

Velo became a professional cyclist in 1996. He began his career with the Italian cycling team Brescialat . He celebrated his first professional victory the following year on the 4th stage of the Giro del Trentino , where he reached the finish as a soloist. In 1998 Velo moved to Mercatone Uno , where he rode until 2001. The first year with this team was also the most successful of his career: for the first time he was the Italian national champion in the individual time trial, and he was also unbeatable in the time trial competitions Coppa delle Nazioni and Firenze-Pistoia . He also won a stage - also a time trial - and the overall classification of the GP Tell in Switzerland , where he was narrowly defeated in the sprint against Daniele Nardello on the second part. He was narrowly beaten in the time trial of the Tour of Catalonia - the prologue was Chris Boardman faster on the fifth stage landed Velo behind the British and Abraham Olano to third. In the pair time trial GP d'Europa he took second place with Marco Serpellini .

In 1999 Velo was able to build on these results in part. He defended his Italian championship title, and he was again successful at Firenze-Pistoia . In the sprint of a breakaway group, he also won the GP Llodio in Spain . At the Syracuse Tour and the GP Industria & Comercio di Prato he missed further successes as second in the sprint as well as in the time trial competition Memorial Fausto Coppi , where he was separated from Ukrainian Sergej Gonchar by 44 seconds.

In 2000 Velo was already in good shape at the beginning of the season, but in second place in the first stage of the Vuelta a Murcia missed his first win of the season. He then came third overall at the Memorial Cecchi Gori. He was also at the start of his first major national tour, the Giro d'Italia . After a twelfth place in the prologue time trial , he had to leave the race after the twelfth stage. Then he became Italian time trial champion for the third time in a row. Shortly afterwards he was also nominated for his first Tour de France . In the individual time trial in Mulhouse , he finished eleventh and finished the tour as 39th overall.

In 2001 Velo started with second place in the time trial of the Vuelta a Murcia . Then the Giro d'Italia came to an end for the first time . As ninth of the prologue, sixth of the time trial on the 16th stage, ninth of the 17th section and sixth of the penultimate stage, he was not only able to finish in the top ten four times, he also achieved his best career result with eleventh place in the overall classification on a three-week tour.

As an assistant to Alessandro Petacchi

For the 2002 season, Velo Mercatone Uno left to sign with Fassa Bortolo . There he supported the sprinter Alessandro Petacchi as part of his sprint train. He did this at the Tour de France , which he completed as 54th, and for the first time at the Vuelta a España , which he finished as 57th and in which he was fourth on the 13th stage in the sprint of a breakaway group. The next year he helped Petacchi at the Giro , where he was fourth of the sixth and tenth of the eleventh stage, after preparing for the sprint for day winner Petacchi. In addition, on the 20th day he himself was in a leading group and came fourth again. Despite the volunteer service, he finished the tour in 21st place. However , he could not finish the Tour of France in the same year, he got out after the sixth stage.

The program for 2004 saw participation in the Giro and the Vuelta a España again . At the Giro he showed his time trial qualities as seventh in the prologue, on the 14th section he even placed third after preparing for Petacchi's victory, and he achieved the same as seventh of the 20th stage. This time, however, he only reached the goal in 101st position. After giving up on the tour after just three days, he was also at the start of the Vuelta, which he finished in 114th. At the beginning of the next season, Velo and his team were victorious in the Settimana Internazionale team time trial. In the one-day race Giro di Toscana he was able to classify himself as third in the mass sprint. As Petacchi's approach, he reached two fifth places in the Giro d'Italia , which he finished as 105th. He achieved two third stage places in the Tour de la Région Wallonne through his sprinting skills. In the subsequent Vuelta a España he finished ninth after the preparatory work to Petacchi's success, but had to give up two days before the end. At the end of the season, he and Petacchi finished second in the pair time trial Coppa Lella Mentasti.

After the end of the Fassa-Bortolo team, Velo moved to the newly founded German-Italian team Milram in 2006 together with Alessandro Petacchi . This time he competed with Fabio Sacchi at the Coppa Lella Mentasti and promptly took his first win in almost six years. He supported Petacchi in the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España . He reached Paris as 99th and narrowly missed placements in the top ten several times. At the Tour of Spain he was able to place eighth in the mass sprint on the last stage after Petacchi got out.

In the 2007 season Velo only competed at the Vuelta and not at the Giro or the Tour. Without a significant placement, he made it to Madrid as 117th overall . At the subsequent Coppa Lella Mentasti, he finished second with Alberto Ongarato . In 2008 Velo stayed with Team Milram, which has now been registered with a German license, although after six years they parted ways with Alessandro Petacchi, who left the team in mid-May. He was at the start of the Giro d'Italia and was 87th overall. After that, he also started the Tour of France , where he finished tenth on the eleventh stage in Foix . In a good 44th place he reached the finish line on the sixth and final tour of his career. He had been able to finish the race four times. In addition, at the end of the season he was successful at the Coppa Lella Mentasti for the second time, his partner was Fabio Sabatini .

Last years at Quickstep

After the end of the 2008 season, Velo left the Milram team and signed with the Quickstep team , but was no longer able to demonstrate his previous performance due to health problems. He contested his first race for the new team on the Tour of Qatar , where he finished second in the team time trial with the team on the first stage. Among other things, he started at the Critérium du Dauphiné in June and at the Vuelta a España . On the fourth stage he finished fifth after putting his team-mate Wouter Weylandt on the sprint. Overall he came in 93rd. It should have been the last of his five participations in the Tour of Spain, which he finished four times.

In 2010, Velo competed for the last time in the Giro d'Italia , which he finished 108th. With a total of seven participations, he only had to leave the race prematurely once. After completing the Tour of Poland and finishing in the top ten at the GP Briek Schotte in Belgium , he ended his career as a professional cyclist with the Tour of Lombardy in October 2010 at the age of 36.

During the last year of his career, Velo was once again suspected of using doping agents. For example, prohibited substances are said to have been seized during a house search of his apartment in summer 2010.

After your active career

After retiring as a cyclist, Velo u. a. as regolatore , motorcyclist in front of the peloton , at races of the RCS Sport and since the 2014 season as responsible for the "time trial" area of ​​the Italian national team under Commissario tecnico Davide Cassani .

successes

1997

1998

1999

2000

  • ItalyItaly Italian champion - time trial

2006

2008

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c tuttobiciweb.it of February 25, 2014: Marco Velo sarà il vice di Cassani per le crono
  2. ↑ a b c velonation.com of October 14, 2010: Marco Velo to retire after Giro del Lombardia
  3. ↑ Ralf Meutgens : Doping im Radsport , Bielefeld 2007, p. 266. ISBN 978-3-7688-5245-6
  4. ↑ focus.de of June 30, 2010: Former Milram professional Velo in the sights of the police

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Velo, Marco
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian cyclist
DATE OF BIRTH March 9, 1974
PLACE OF BIRTH Brescia , Italy