Veteran Italian manager Gianni Savio has confirmed that his squad will continue in 2023, on this occasion reformed as a Continental level team registered in Colombia.
A manager since the mid-1980s, Savio ran the Drone Hopper-Androni Giocattoli ProTeam in 2022, with Madrid-based start-up company Drone Hopper as its main backer.
But an industrial downturn in Spain badly affected the company and consequently left the squad struggling to pay its riders and staff in the latter part of the year.
Savio will now revert to running his team at Continental level in 2023, with a merger with the Colombia Tierra de Atletas squad, which already operates in that division, one potential option on the table.
After Italian newspaper Tuttosport, based in Savio’s hometown of Turin, broke the news, Savio subsequently told tuttobiciweb that Drone Hopper had initially come across as a dream sponsor, providing all the correct paperwork to the UCI and a four-year deal. “They blew us away,” he said.
Savio’s current outfit has existed since 1996. Over the years, the team’s jerseys have always been cluttered with the branding of a variegated coalition of sponsors, with past backers including Italian saddle companies, Colombian soft drinks, and even the Venezuelan state.
Yet despite that flux of financiers, the structure itself remained remarkably stable. This is, Savio told Cyclingnews in October, the first time he has reached the end of a season unsure as to whether his team would continue into the next one.
"We have a bank guarantee of €350,000, but that doesn’t bring you far with a team at this level and I certainly don’t want to tie myself to that risk," Savio said in October. “That’s the situation we’re in – we’re in a situation of standby. It’s not true that we’ve decided not to continue, but it’s also not certain that we will continue.
"Given that Drone Hopper is in difficulty, we have to find an alternative solution – that is, a replacement sponsor. Otherwise, we won’t continue because it’s continuous stress. You can’t keep the squad going properly with all these economic issues to worry about."
With five riders under contract for 2023, Savio promised this week, to honour all economic commitments made to riders and staff.
“But considering the difficulties we had with Drone Hopper, next year we do not intend to take on too many risks. For this reason, our intention is to spend a year of transition with a Continental squad and a project based on talented young racers, so we could return to the ProTeam level in 2024.”
Savio said that barring a few minor details, the fusion with a Continental team with a South American license was all but settled and that for him, such a move represented a return to his roots.
“Personally, I restart from a Continental, with the same enthusiasm as when I started, about thirty years ago,” Savio, who began directing in 1986 with the small Santini Cierre squad and whose previous teams have included ZG-Mobili, which raced the Tour de France in 1995, told Tuttobiciweb.
“Cycling continues to be my great passion and returning to work with South America represents a celebration of the land where I have discovered numerous talents, the latest among which is Egan Bernal."
