The Vini Fantini-Selle Italia team will return in 2014, initially known as “Yellow Flou” - or “Giallo Fluo” in Italian - as negotiations with potential name sponsors continue. The Italian Professional Continental team - with its Yellow Flou Heart symbol - is hoping for a new start next season, and will return to “the foundations of the project,” after a controversial 2013.
Despite taking several high quality results this year, including Oscar Gatto’s Dwars door Vlaanderen victory and Francesco Chicchi’s two stages of the Tour de Langkawi, the team’s 2013 season is most remembered for the positive EPO tests returned by Danilo Di Luca and Mauro Santambrogio before and during the Giro d’Italia. In returning to its roots, the team will hope to put these scandals behind it.
[There have been reports in the Italian media that Santambrogio’s B-sample failed to confirm the positive A-sample, and the rider may escape sanction - ed].
Team manager Angelo Citracca and directeur sportif Luca Scinto continue their association with the Zecchetto group, which means that the team will wear clothing from the new Alé brand and ride Cipollini bikes, which will continue to be fitted with Ursus wheels and Selle Italia saddles.
Neri Sottoli, which was the team’s second sponsor in 2011 stays with the team, along with a number of the smaller partners. Whether they will still wear the logo of the Farnese Vini company - whose Vini Fantini was name sponsor this season - remains to be seen, however, since it will become the first sponsor of the team that is currently Nippo-De Rosa.
With Gatto having departed to Cannondale, the 2014 team will be built around 2012 Giro stage winner Matteo Rabottini, Daniele Colli, Mauro Finetto and 2013 Giro Traguardo Volante classification winner Rafael Andriato. The big name transfer to come in is that of Simone Ponzi from Astana, but the team has also recruited a number of promising neo-pros.
The team’s objectives will be the same as in previous years, with invitations to the important races - particularly the Italian ones, like the Giro, Milano-Sanremo etc - at the top of its list. More importantly though, the team will be keen to prove itself worthy of those invitations after the problems in this year’s Giro.
“Victories, yes, but first of all honour any competition to which the team will participate” says the team’s statement.
After the embarrassment - to both the team and the race - in the Giro this year, the Yellow Flou team is introducing measures to demonstrate that the same mistakes will not be made.
“In addition, innovate in a process of public clarity about the great efforts made each year by the management to supervise and control their athletes,” the team states. “There'll be news in terms of visibility and internal regulations, something that to date has never yet been done.”