From Turin, who has always been linked to the South American movement, he had been ill for some time. It has launched many riders into the professional ranks, from Cassani to the Colombian winner of the 2021 Giro
Gianni Savio was 76 years old, and he had spent the last 40 years in cycling as an authoritative and esteemed manager. For his extraordinary humanity, first of all, which was equal to the flair, the competence, the love that allowed him to discover a difficult to quantify number of talents: including the Colombian Egan Bernal, winner of the 2019 Tour and the 2021 Giro. The verbs all ‘imperfectly explain that Gianni, born in Turin on 16 April 1948, died yesterday, overcome by a long illness: in the environment he was known as ‘the Prince’.
the inheritance
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“He was a great person”, Andrea Tafi told us, the only Italian ever capable of winning both the Flanders and the Roubaix, one of the many leading names to have also raced for Savio. Gianni had inherited the passion from his maternal grandfather Giovanni Galli, Italian champion among the independents at the beginning of the twentieth century. He began his adventure as a manager in 1985, the year in which he followed the team manager course (“Italo Allodi was also among the speakers”) organized by the FCI. Savio – who as a young man, playing football, had marked Paolo Rossi in a friendly match – had also directed the national teams of Colombia (when Botero won the world time trial title in 2002) and Venezuela, and left important signs in the Giro and Tour thanks to ‘his’ runners like Sierra and Nelson Rodriguez. And then Michele Scarponi and Masnada, Rebellin and Simoni, Parra, Rujano, Ballerini… An endless list. Gianni, we already miss you.
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