Tafi - Giorgio Squinzi, a visionary in the world of cycling, who spoke to people’s hearts

Thank you.

I would simply like to express my most sincere thanks for everything Giorgio Squinzi did for me. This heartfelt but rather bland ‘thank you’ is my way of thanking Giorgio Squinzi for everything he represented for me and for all those people, who, like me, were lucky enough to meet him along their way.

In summer 1993 I was fortunate enough to meet somebody for the first time, who, just a few minutes later, would become my official sponsor and my boss. After entering his office, I soon realised that I was not just in an ordinary company or in the midst of the usual business people, I had entered a family of men and women, every last one of whom felt a real sense of belonging.

All it took was a handshake, way before I even signed the contract that would tie me to that great “Mapei era” for my entire career, too brief and short lived to be considered an age, but extremely prolific, so much so that it was considered to be a golden period in cycling. After chatting for about a minute I realised he was an extremely well-informed and passionate man, attentive and respectful, who could talk to people’s hearts in a way very few people could. His humaneness, attention and respect, combined with an incomparable sense of responsibility and rigour, immediately won me over. His great qualities were plain to see.

I managed to gain his esteem, trust and friendship and I was fortunate enough to win one of the world’s greatest bike races, in my opinion the best of all, a race that Giorgio Squinzi and his wife, Adriana Spazzoli, truly loved: the Paris-Roubaix. An extreme race that has come to be associated with the company and its famous cycling team with its distinctive “cube patterned” jersey; a team that built its now legendary reputation on the cobbles of the “Queen of the classics”.

I was lucky enough to win it on a day when Giorgio Squinzi watched the race with my entire family at the Roubaix velodrome. What happiness, what celebrations and how many fond memories now shrouded in sadness. They are what help us to keep on going, to keep on doing better, the way he taught us to. We must never stop pedalling whatever happens. But it is undeniable that there is now a feeling of regret and a strong one, as strong as the love that was with him along that final kilometre and that will be with us for the rest of our days.

So, what does Mr Squinzi leave behind?
A bit of everything. It is there for all to us.
A great family.
A great company.
Lots of little enterprises of the highest calibre that have become benchmarks over the years, such as the Mapei Sport Center, which he first envisaged and set about creating with Aldo Sassi, who is also still in all our hearts. It is just a pity that the best cycling team in the world came to the end of the road in 2002. But once again it happened Mapei style, in the manner of Mr Squinzi and Ms Spazzoli: without ever stopping pedalling.

They left cycling so they could contribute something more and even better for the world of sport. They left a gaping hole behind, but also a visionary philosophy that has captured the minds of so many entrepreneurs, who are now trying to put this method into practice in the whole of the World Tour.

Do you remember when Mapei launched its youth team in 2000? Many people thought it was a bit too much, almost a provocation, overstepping the mark and going too far, but it was just the kind of vision of the future that only Giorgio Squinzi had.

Mapei was the first example of a global team in a sport - cycling - that was only just becoming a worldwide affair. And all this was thought up, envisaged and first tested out by a man who was always one step ahead of the rest, sensing and encouraging change before it happened.

For this reason and many others, all I can say to him now is thank you.

I will never forget him and never stop pedalling.