Dario Andriotto: “Collectively I see the team very cohesive, more united; we are stronger”

He has just finished his daily running session, a ritual he maintains during the season and he gets up much earlier. “You have to take care of yourself and it’s not that we have too much time on our bikes,” he jokes. Dario Andriotto is the second director of Kometa-Xstra. The Italian, professional cyclist between 1995 and 2010 and right-hand man of Jesús Hernández for two seasons at the wheel of the continental structure of the Alberto Contador Foundation, shows his confidence in the 2020 project.

“The season is very exciting. The project is going for its third year on the road and in this time we have managed that several kids, either from our team as Moschetti, Oldani, JuanPe or Michel, or after passing through here the first year, as Patrick Gamper or Kevin Inkelaar, reach the WorldTour. That is something that satisfies a lot, because we are not a project in which to add more or less victories is fundamental, although in the end the victories are so to say the most media,” he assesses.

Andriotto is very satisfied with the team of the Kometa-Xstra 2020: “They are young boys, with a lot of desire. Some of them already have more experience and also with the added value of the experience you run better, you know your place and you always give the team what they need on the road. The squad has a lot of quality. There are some very interesting guys. Collectively I see the team very cohesive, more united, we are stronger. I think the group is much more of a group than other years. And that’s very good because it’s always been a sign of identity of our team in formation”.

For Busto Arsizio´s man, the economic power of the WorldTour structures and their ability to sign any runner is a problem if the International Cycling Union does not take action. In this sense he agrees with Fran Contador’s reflections on the matter. “In the end a limbo is being created where there are teams that form runners, and that is phenomenal, but at the same time their main supports can fall into a certain disenchantment. Yes, satisfied with the formation. And that’s it? And nothing else?”.

“The UCI should study some way of compensating the teams, some way for the sponsors to see that their bet is still as good or more. In the end it seems that if you’re not on the WorldTour you don’t really exist. It looks like we’re going that way,” says the Lombard.