Mercatone Uno-Zucchini Mercatone Uno-Medeghini Mercatone Uno-Saeco Mercatone Uno Mercatone Uno-Bianchi Mercatone Uno-Albacom Mercatone Uno-
Stream TV Mercatone Uno Mercatone Uno-Scanavino
Mercatone Uno–Scanavino is a former professional
cycling team which was based in
San Marino and then in Italy. Throughout the 1990s it was one of the strongest Italian cycling teams in the
peloton. The team was sponsored by a chain of supermarkets in Italy.
History
San Marino Team
The team began as Mercatone Uno-Zucchini in 1992 and was based in
San Marino.[1] Riding with the team
Adriano Baffi won the
points classification in the
1993 Giro d'Italia. During the 1995 season the General Manager of the team was Franco Gini and the directeur sportifs were Antonio Salutini, Franco Chioccioli, Olivano Locatelli and Bruno Vicino.[2] This team closed at the end of 1995 season with the withdrawal of the sponsor: the new team had the same sponsor but was a totally different team.
Team built around Pantani
When Carrera Jeans manufacturers stopped sponsoring the famous Italian cycling team
Carrera Jeans–Tassoni at the end of 1996, it was reported that manager Davide Boifava would be building a team around
Marco Pantani with Mercatone Uno as the main sponsor.[3] However Luciano Pezzi became the President of that new team, taking with him as
directeur sportifs Giuseppe Martinelli, Davide Cassani and Alessandro Giannelli and ten of the riders from Carrera including
Pantani.[4] In this way a new team based in Italy was formed with
Marco Pantani as the team leader and which rode
Bianchi bikes. According to former cycling champion
Felice Gimondi the team was built exclusively around Pantani with directeur sportif Martinelli refusing to sign a sprinter as this could have created other objectives of the team. According to Gimondi, in this way the team was conceived similarly to the way the
Bianchi cycling team was conceived in the mid-1940s as a team built around
Fausto Coppi.[5]
In the 1997 season, Pantani finished third overall at the
1997 Tour de France and won several stages including the stage to the
Alpe d'Huez. The following year Pantani won the
1998 Giro d'Italia[6] and then won the
1998 Tour de France – becoming only the seventh rider in history to achieve the
Giro–
Tour double. Pantani dedicated his win to the recently deceased General manager of Mercatone Uno Luciano Pezzi.[7] After achieving this great success, the head of the branch of the Mercatone Uno supermarkets, Romano Cenni, said that the sponsor would remain in cycling as long as Pantani was still cycling.[8] In the
1999 Giro d'Italia, Pantani dominated the race until he was suspended from the race due to a high haematocrit level. As a result, the entire Mercatone Uno team withdrew from the race.[9] The following year the team won the
2000 Giro d'Italia with
Stefano Garzelli to which he thanked Pantani for help.[10] Although Garzelli had a contract that run until the end of the 2001 season, he left the team at the end of 2000.[11] When Pantani abandoned the
2002 Giro d'Italia, there was immediate talk of Mercatone Uno stopping its sponsorship after the 2002 season as the team had not been invited to the
2001 and
2002 Tour de France.[12] However the team continued during the 2003 season where Pantani rode to 14th overall in the
2003 Giro d'Italia. The team was disbanded at the end of 2003 due to the probable retirement of Pantani[13] with several riders going to the South African team
Barloworld.[14]