THE MAN AT THE TOP

Maurizio Evangelista was a leading cycling journalist in the 1980s and early 1990s and then created the successful Vitesse communications agency. Now he is the Tour of the Alps race director; it’s the third and seemingly hardest chapter of his life in the sport.

Evangelista wrote for the Corriere dello Sport newspaper, which always loved to compete against bigger rivals La Gazzetta dello Sport. After he created Vitesse, he managed the Saeco media office in its early years and then numerous other clients. Evangelista moved to near Lake Garda a decade ago and became the Trentino/Alps race director, with his son David taking over at Vitesse.

“I think a lot of people don’t fully appreciate just how difficult and complex it is to put on a major professional sporting event out on the open road” Evangelista explains.

“They can see the results and see the problems when things go wrong but don’t see and understand the hard work to make a bike race happen. It’s also a lot more stressful and complex to put on a race during the pandemic.

“We had a double crossing of the Italian-Austrian border, which had often been closed during the different lockdowns. We had to respect the Italian medical protocol, the Austrian medical protocol and the UCI protocol. We did two sets of testing during the race and did everything we could to keep the teams safe in their bubbles and away from possible infection. That added to further stress but we managed to keep the race safe.”

The Tour of the Alps was the first big event of the Trentino-Tyrol- South Tyrol cycling season and was a test for bigger events in the months ahead.