Mario Cipollini

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Mario Cipollini Road cycling
Mario Cipollini
Mario Cipollini
To person
Nickname Re Leone, Super Mario
Date of birth March 22, 1967
nation ItalyItaly Italy
discipline Street
Driver type sprinter
To the team
Current team End of career
Team (s)
1989–1991
1992–1993
1994–1995
1996–2001
2002
2003–2004
2005
2008
Del Tongo
GB-MG Maglificio
Mercatone Uno
Saeco
Acqua & Sapone
Domina Vacanze
Liquigas
Rock Racing
Most important successes
Last updated: February 28, 2009

Mario Cipollini (born March 22, 1967 in San Giusto di Compito, Capannori , Province of Lucca ) is a former Italian cyclist who is considered one of the best sprinters of the 90s . In his career he achieved 189 victories, including 57 stages in the Grand Tours and in 2002 the road world championships and the classic Milan – Sanremo .

Career

He already had outstanding success as a junior and amateur. So in 1985 he was world champion in juniors in the team time trial . In 1987 he won the Regio Tour in Germany . In the same year he launched the first time in the amateurs at the road race in the UCI World Cup and became the 85th Cipollini in 1989 Professional when cycling team Del Tongo . He was considered a pure sprinter who won especially in mass sprints at stage races . His first stage win in the 1989 Giro d'Italia followed until 2003 Giro d'Italia another 41, which he record of Giro stage wins by Alfredo Binda took over. He also won the Maglia ciclamino of the winner in the points classification in 1992 and 1997 .

Cipollini was also successful in the Tour de France and won a total of twelve stages between 1993 and 1999, including four stages in a row in 1999. He wore the yellow jersey for a total of six days . However, he did not finish a Tour de France, as he gave up on every participation in front of or in the mountains. His teams were not invited by the organizers several times.

Cipollini perfected a sprint train tailored for him . His teams specifically hired drivers with strong sprinting skills, such as Silvio Martinello , Paolo Fornaciari , Giuseppe Calcaterra , Gian Matteo Fagnini and Mario Scirea . This “platoon” of his teammates took the lead of the peloton for the last few kilometers and kept the pace as high as possible in order to thwart attempts to break away and bring Cipollini into a tailor-made sprint position. During his time with the Saeco team from 1996 to 2001, the train was known as treno rosso (German: red train) according to the color of the team jersey .

Cipollini had his most successful year in 2002: at the age of 35, he first decided in the mass sprint at Milan-San Remo , then won Gent-Wevelgem for the third time in a sprint of a five-man breakaway group , in which he occasionally drove a solo attack. After winning six stages at the Giro d'Italia , he crowned his season by winning the road world championship in Zolder , where his national team colleague Alessandro Petacchi attracted the sprint of a 35-strong top group.

In April 2005, the now 38-year-old Cipollini temporarily ended his career shortly before the Giro d'Italia . In February 2008 he started a comeback starting with the participation in the California Tour with the American Continental Team Rock Racing . In March 2008, however, the contract was canceled.

According to research by the Italian sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport , Cipollini is said to have received EPO , blood , anabolic steroids and hormones from the Spanish sports doctor Eufemiano Fuentes in 2002 . Under the name "Maria" or "CP" he was listed in his file. In the years up to 2004 he is said to have received doping drugs regularly. According to an investigation report by the Anti-Doping Commission of the French Senate in July 2013, Cipollini was one of the riders who were subsequently convicted of being doped with EPO at the 1998 Tour de France . The report relied on the results of anonymized but assignable EPO follow-up tests. Cipollini tried to get his then Domina Vacanze cycling team to ensure that Filippo Simeoni would not be selected for the 2004 Tour de France after he claimed to have received advice from Michele Ferrari on the use of doping in court .

Cipollini, nicknamed Re Leone (German: Lion King) and Super Mario, was known for his extravagances: He was punished several times for not wearing the registered team clothing. a. a muscle suit , a zebra and tiger pattern and a techno skin suit . At the 1999 Tour de France , he and his team wore ancient Roman clothing on the first day of rest to celebrate Julius Caesar's birthday. He wore yellow racing shorts in addition to the yellow jersey before this practice was allowed by the Union Cycliste Internationale . At the Vuelta a España 2000 he was disqualified after punching Francisco Cerezo in the face before the start of a stage. Cipollini accused him of offending him.

Professional

In 2009 Mario Cipollini began working on the management staff of the Ukrainian-Italian team ISD-Neri . He acted as a technical advisor and marketing expert. Cipollini has also announced that it will launch a line of cycling clothing called Cipollini . In 2010 Mario Cipollini launched his own racing bike brand with the name MCipollini . The ISD Neri team rode racing bikes of this brand from the 2010 season. From 2011 MCipollini sponsored the UCI Women's Team Cipollini-Giordana .

Private life

Mario Cipollini comes from a cycling family. His father Vivaldo was a successful amateur. Cipollini's older sister Tiziana was a strong cyclist, and his brother Cesare was also a professional cyclist, if not as successful as Mario.

In April 2009 Cipollini was sentenced to 22 months in prison and a fine of 1.9 million euros for tax evasion. In June 2010, Cipollini was acquitted of allegations of tax evasion on appeal. The court in Lucca found that he had been living in Monte Carlo ( Monaco ) at the time in question - as stated by him . The prosecution, however, had alleged that Cipollini only pretended to be living in Monaco and was therefore subject to tax in Italy. Because of the amnesty prevailing in Italy, Cipollini would not have had to go to prison even if convicted.

successes

One day race
Grand Tours

Awards

Trivia

Cipollini was considered very fashion-conscious. In 1998 he reported in an interview that he owned around 180 suits, around 700 shirts and 400 pairs of shoes.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ German Cycling Association of the GDR (ed.): The cyclist . No. 9/1988 . Berlin, S. 5 .
  2. a b Storia di Mario Cipollini on museociclismo.it accessed on November 15, 2013
  3. faz.net from July 10, 2002: Sprint star Mario Cipollini gets off his bike
  4. a b c cyclingnews.com of October 11, 2014: The wounded Lion King
  5. radsport-news.com of March 23, 2003: Zabel who had fallen, missed hat trick and lost World Cup lead
  6. radsport-news.com of April 10, 2002: Cipollini celebrates third victory in Wevelgem - Zabel 8.
  7. radsport-news.com of October 13, 2002: Cipollini Road World Champion - Zabel third
  8. radsport-news.com from March 19, 2008: Cipollini leaves Rock Racing in a grudge
  9. wn.de of February 10, 2013: "Maria" and "Luigi" - two bike heroes on the edge
  10. spiegel.de of July 24, 2013: Ullrich and Zabel are on the EPO list
  11. Mario Cipollini - The wounded lion, in: Procycling January 2015 (German edition), pp. 58ff, 62
  12. ^ Mario Cipollini . Graham Watson cycling photography. Archived from the original on February 23, 2009. Retrieved December 5, 2014.
  13. ^ Mario Cipollini . cyclingnews.com. September 2002. Retrieved December 5, 2014.
  14. ^ Mario Cipollini . cyclingnews.com. May 2002. Retrieved December 5, 2014.
  15. ^ Mario Cipollini . cyclingnews.com. September 2004. Retrieved December 5, 2014.
  16. 94th Tour de France . cyclingnews.com. 2007. Accessed December 5, 2014.
  17. independent.co.uk of August 31, 2000: Punch puts Cipollini out of tour
  18. gazzetta.it of November 10, 2008: Cipollini è semper in sella - Sarà consulente della Isd
  19. corrierefiorentino.corriere.it of January 12, 2009 Da ciclista a stilista. Cipollini lancia una linea di abbigliamento
  20. cyclingnews.com from January 19, 2010: ISD to ride Cipollini bikes in 2010
  21. radsport-news.com of November 17, 2010: Cipollini sponsors women's racing team
  22. Sports families - La Famiglia Cipollini on cycling4fans.de
  23. radsport-news.com from April 19, 2009: Cipollini sentenced to prison
  24. Mario Cipollini assolto dall'accusa di evasione (Italian) . In: Il Tirreno , Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso . Archived from the original on February 16, 2013. Retrieved November 15, 2014. 
  25. sport1.de of June 9, 2010: Cipollini acquitted
  26. ^ Kurt Lorenz GmbH (ed.): Tour . No. 4/1998 . Starnberg, S. 111 .

Web links

Commons : Mario Cipollini  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files