Five days after finishing the Giro d’Italia it’s time to summarize what happened during the latest edition of la corsa rosa. And no other is better suited to do so than Michele Acquarone, both Giro’s and RCS Sport’s director, who kindly attended us in spite of a cold he got since the race finished. It was quite an unique chance to talk about the state of cycling with the biggest figure behind the second most important stage race of the calendar. This is the result of our long talk.
Last year, during our previous interview, you told us 2013 was going to be a very important year for Giro’s growth. Are you happy about how much it has grown since then?
Yes, yes! Every year is important and we must show the world the race is growing and becoming more important. This year has been a great season for us because we’ve had three important things: riders, televisions and foreign journalists. We’ve had a lot of great riders on the start, so it means every team is realizing how important Giro d’Italia is and what it means to win it; there have also been a lot of new channels broadcasting the race live, in Spain (regionals), African, ESPN Sur for South America… it has given us a lot of visibility; and last, plenty of foreign journalists coming from all over the world, which means Giro d’Italia generates strong interest. Journalists from the United States, from Canada, Europe, South America, even China. These are sings which make us realize how big the race already is and how much it’s growing.
For the race it’s been great that Nibali won it, because he is a very important rider and also Italian, good for TV audiences. But there was some emotion missing at the end. Did Wiggins’ abandon harm the Giro?
Probably if I, as organizer, could choose, I’d love to see all the strongest riders on the very last day with chances for the victory. It generates additional passion. It’s like choosing between a football match ending 1-0 or 4-3. 4-3 generates a lot more emotion. Nibali has won 4-0. He’s been the strongest during these three last weeks. I can’t control that, but as an organizer I can just say ‘chapeau Vincenzo’ and congratulate him.
So Wiggins’ participation itself was great news for the race, wasn’t it?
Everyone has spoken a lot about Wiggins. But for me it’s also been really good news having Samuel Sánchez after all this time, Hesjedal as defending champion, Gesink on his Giro debut, Evans… even Nibali, as he hadn’t raced the previous year. Almost all the teams have brough interesting riders. It’s really important, it means we’re growing. But obviously we want to become bigger and we want to have all the strongest riders. We’d loved to have Contador or ‘Purito’ on the startlist… but it’s going ‘piano piano’. If we keep on working like this, we’re sure all the best riders will come soon aiming for the victory, somehow as it happened during this year’s Tirreno-Adriatico.
So do you think next year will continue on the same direction?
We don’t know. We just know we’ll continue working on building the most important race over the calendar, so no team would ever renounce. It’s what I like: if a team comes, it comes to win. For example it has happened with BMC. They’ve come with a good team, so I don’t mind if they come with Evans or Van Garderen, I just want them to think Giro d’Italia is a main goal. It’s our battle for the near future.
Next year Belfast will host the start and also Dublin will see the race. You’re really interested in the Anglo-Saxon market.
They’re really interested in cycling. Our agreement with Belfast is really good, we’ve been working on it for two years, and we’re really proud to advertise ourselves in Ireland and the whole world. It will be a special event, with a lot of fans and a good showing of their land.
But there won’t be a rest day after the journey back to Italy.
We’ll ride on Saturday, Sunday and Monday in Ireland and on Tuesday in Italy. We’ve analyzed the options and we’re sure there won’t be any problem, neither for teams nor riders, so we’re ready and not worried at all. It will be a demanding start.
There are rumours about the calendar for 2014, it’s been said Giro will start a week later.
Yes, it’s true. Next year the race will start on May 10th, but there’s no special reason, every cycling race will be raced a week later. This is the best place for the Giro in the current calendar.
Rumours also say the race won’t end in Milano next year either.
We don’t know it yet. We’ll start discussing about next year’s parcours soon. But right now we haven’t received any application from the city of Milano. If they don’t apply for, there won’t be a stage in Milano. It’s not a problem, there are a lot of places to finish the race.
Could you advance something about the parcours? It’s said Monte Zoncolan could return…
I’ve read a lot of things, we’ve received a lot of applications and there are a lot of interests. But there’s nothing for sure yet, it will be defined during the next days. Everything is possible, but nothing sure.
We all agree that the Giro’s biggest problem this year has been the weather. Too much cold and snow.
It’s still cold in Italy, in May and July. All our mountains are covered in snow. I hope it happens just once in a century and next 99 times we won’t have any problem.
Are you happy with the decisions you made during the race?
The day we cancelled the stage was really tough. It was a hard decision, when you plan the race you plan all the stages, so if you cancel one of them the race gets detracted. But there was too much snow, the roads were not in the best condition and riders had suffered a lot during the first two weeks, it was impossible to make the race. If we hadn’t cancelled the stage we don’t know what’d have happened, teams were not sure if they’d have raced.
But it’s not going to change next year, you’ll keep on reaching this kind of high mountains, won’t you?
Look, last year we climbed Mount Stelvio and it was the most beautiful stage, so there’s no reason to stop going to the highest, the nicest and the most famous mountains in Italy: Gavia, Giau, Stelvio… there shouldn’t be any problems due to the snow. We’ll plan the race as we’ve always done.
So, do you still think the toughest week should be the last one?
I think is nice for the Giro. It’s a three-week long race, and it should be in crescendo, as a musical symphony, it starts slowly and gets always more intense. If the main stages were at the begining and the easy one were at the end, how would you recover the time lost? Giro should be open for surprises, everyone should fight for it until the very end, so its final days have to be tough. The parcours must be balanced, there have to be stages of any kind during the race, but always in crescendo. This year we cancelled Stelvio’s stage, but we thought everything was possible the following day in the Tre Cime di Lavaredo. Or remember last year, De Gendt got on the podium on the last mountain stage. This is what we want and we’ll continue working on it, the race has to be spectacular everyday, and intensity has to be increasing day after day.
I’d like to ask about Mount Cenis. The bunch climbed it slowly, the was a non-harming pact. How does it feel for the organizer?
Riders make the race. If they decide not to ride it’s their choice and it’s them who have to explain their decision to the fans. Anyway, the previous stage was really tough, with a lot of snow and cold, and they decided to start calmly and then ride faster. Obviously I prefer when every day, every minute, there’s a good stage, but I can understand they needed a moment of rest. It was their choice and it’s up to them to explain their decission to the fans. If riders took decisions like that every day, there wouldn’t be fans; if they never did it, it would be great; if they do it once during the race I think fans should understand it.
It harms riders, but in this case it also harms you.
We just create the context to get the spectacle. In my opinion the less we are protagonists, the better. We just have to do our work, and this year spectacle has been daily, so I can’t complain, and neither fans. As an organizer, I’m happy.
Another dark spot has been Danilo Di Luca’s positive.
[*] Michele Acquarone was interviewed on May 30th
We’re happy UCI’s antidoping system works. If two riders tested positive and went home during the race it’s their problem. It’s not a problem for us, we’re not the police. 207 riders started the race, so I prefer speaking about those 205 who have understood cycling has changed. I don’t have to speak about this. When news are on the air, for me it’s over.
If there hadn’t been any positive, could it mean antidoping system doesn’t work?
[He reflects his answer] During the last football World Cup, no player tested positive. We can think football is a clean sport where doping doesn’t exist, or maybe not all the controls work. It’s not my task to answer this question. We know our controls in cycling work. I prefer speaking about the 205 who as far as I know have understood cycling is different.
Now Ag2r – La Mondiale, after Sylvain George’s positive won’t race Dauphiné. What does an organizer think about this?
The question I ask myself is: they won’t race Dauphiné but they’ll race le Tour de France. Shouldn’t they ride neither Dauphiné nor le Tour? I don’t know. When there are two positives, it’s fair there should be a sanction, but it shouldn’t be a inner rule of the teams, it should be a UCI rule. We have to speak with the teams, it has to be their task to keep their riders clean. If a rider has a problem, it should automatically be a problem for the team. It might be a ban for Dauphiné, a ban for the whole year, a ban for le Tour… it has to be defined. But rules have to be clear and the same for everyone. It shouldn’t be just for Ag2r and not for other teams. UCI should manage everything, but I agree teams should be sanctioned.
Let’s go back to nicer topics. Colombian cyclists’ performance has been great. Is South America also a region with huge potential for you?
We’re extremely happy for Urán and Betancur. It’s been a redemption for both. Urán became Sky’s leader after Wiggins abandoned the race and not just his wingman, so I’m happy for him, he’s a great guy, and also happy for Betancur, he’s suffered, but he’s won the white jersey and we know what it means. Both of them can eventually wear the pink jersey, no Colombian has ever done it, they might even win the Giro some day. We’re really happy to see the interest of the Colombian fans in these two riders, because in a global sport as cycling is, the more different countries fighting for the victory, the better. This year there has been an African team winning Milano-Sanremo and we’re also very happy now that two riders coming from South America have respectively won the white jersey and finished on second place.
Now that you mention Milano-Sanremo, you took a difficult decision due to the weather. If you came back to that point, would you have act on the same way?
We would’ve done exactly the same, we knew it could be cold, but none of us could expect that blizzard. It’s true that we thought about cancellation, but teams wanted to ride the race unanimously. We chose a strange solution, but if we had to make that decision today it’d be the same.
Is Giro d’Italia somehow afraid of Tour of California or any other new race in other continents?
We just think about the Giro d’Italia, how to make the Giro d’Italia grow. Our interest is our race. After le Tour de France, it’s the most important race in the world, and for a lot of people the one they love the most. We should probably improve the calendar so we’re working on it. The goal is having a new calendar for 2015 next January. We’re sure there will be a solution and it will please the fans, they’ll see the strongest riders on the most important races. We hope UCI helps us and working shoulder to shoulder we’ll find the magic formula. Because I’m sure, fans want to see the strongest riders on the most important races.
How could this be achieved?
There has to be courage to decide which ones are the most important races. Maybe modifying them so there would be time for the riders to get recovered. We’re ready to discuss it, because we think the greater good is more important than ours. If we have to renounce to some things, we will.
For example, would you accept advancing or delaying Giro on the calendar?
If there have to be four rest days, to let the riders recover, we’d have four rest days, if we have to cut our race, we’d cut it. But we need to have guarantees it would be for the greater good. We’d do a step backward if it meant everybody would take that step forward.
What are you plans to make the Giro keep on growing?
We need to make people talk about Giro during the whole year and not just in May. To keep their interest for the race. We’ll work hard on communication and marketing to make them take about the Giro even when there’s no Giro. We’ll work with media, with journalists, we’ll take them to Italy to know more about our race and its history, before and during the Giro. And we’ll obviously keep contact with every WorldTour team so they will come with big goals and we’ll have the best riders. It’s our most important task. Media, fans and teams.
And is there anything concrete for Spain? It’s true that his year there have been some channels broadcasting the race, but there’s no national public channel broadcasting it.
Right now situation in Spain is difficult. When the public channel didn’t want to broadcast a football match where the national team was playing we got worried. We think the situation around television market is complicated. We should talk with all televisions to make the interest higher, it doesn’t really mind if the race is broadcasted live, deferred or just in the news. The thing is people should talk about the race a lot. We’re working on it, I’d love to have an extra autonomical channel broadcasting it next year, for example.
Obviously our priority would be that TVE [Spanish public channel] broadcasts it, but we know it would take some years to achieve that. But it’s our goal. Context changes really fast, so we should give fans the chance to watch the race in as many options and schedules as possible. Our priority is TVE, but maybe it would be more important broadcasting it via Youtube Spain. Every door should be opened. Right now, and for the next four years, there’s an agreement with Eurosport, we work with them in Spain, so we’ll focus on enhancing their activity in Spain, so more people could watch the Giro through Eurosport.