INSIDE A PRO TEAM KIT FACTORY
Procycling goes inside the headquarters of Sportful to meet the people designing and making kit for one of the sport’s top teams
WE DON’T MIND admitting that we’re fans of Sportful clothing. Time and again we’ve been impressed by kit that we’ve tested and by the attention to detail that comes with supplying one of the world’s top teams. So when they invited us for an exclusive tour around the factory during a trip to Italy last summer, we jumped at it.
While today Sportful is known as the kit supplier to Tinkoff- Saxo, its story begins in a different sporting arena. Sportful’s parent company, Manifattura Valcismon ( literally ‘manufacturer of the Cismon valley’), which also owns Castelli, was established in 1946 as a maker of woollen underwear. The founder’s son, Dr Giordano Cremonese, took over the business in 1972. He was a keen crosscountry skier and, unable to find any satisfactory clothing to buy, set his Former pro Andrea Peron is Sportful’s team liaison and brings vast experience company about making some. It proved popular and Sportful was born.
The Cremonese family brand still owns the company; Dr Giordana is president and all four of his children work there. And Sportful still sponsors cross- country skiing out of his passion for it.
However, some 30 years ago the Cremonese family fell in love with cycling. Their first team partnership was with Alfa Lum in the early 80s. From then, cycling quickly took over from skiing as the firm’s top priority.
Andrea Peron is the team liaison to Tinkoff- Saxo. Readers of a certain age and students of cycling history will recall his name, and with good reason. Peron was Italian TT champion and finished in the top 10 at the Tour during 15 years as a pro with Gatorade, Motorola, FDJ, Fassa Bortolo and Bjarne Riis’s CSC.