Peter Sagan arrives at Sportful HQ
In the cycling industry it’s always exciting to have the World Champion riding in your stuff, for Sportful it’s extra special since Sagan is our 10th World Champion!
We started sponsoring pro cycling teams back in 1988 with Alfa Lum and were extremely lucky to have our first world champion that year with Maurizio Fondriest, followed later by Abraham Olano, Johan Musseuw, Oscar Freire and Oscar Camenzind. Sportful then became sponsors of the Italian National team and enjoyed victories with Mario Cipollini, Paolo Bettini (twice!) and then Alessandro Ballan.
Peter Sagan’s victory last month gave us our 10th champion to celebrate, so we thought it was well worth inviting him to the company and throwing him a party!
Sagan’s ‘tour guide’ for the day was to be Bike Trails star (and also a World Champion) Vittorio Brumotti who of course arrived on stage in his own fashion…
Brumotti making sure our work tables are sturdy enough…
The day continued with a celebration of our past winners, watching their victories on some grainy archive footage (delivered on a tape!) we then welcomed double World Champion Paolo Bettini to the stage to talk about his victory.
Paolo Bettini talks about his victories
We also celebrated the other World Champion present, our Performance Director Andrea Peron – TTT World Champion.
It was then time to present our star guest – Peter Sagan.
Sportful Director Dario Cremonese introduces Peter Sagan
Sagan was welcomed to the stage with a deafening applause, he’s a very popular champion. He spoke a little bit about the race and what it meant as a rider to win a world championship and how it had changed his life (he hasn’t had a ‘day off ‘ since he won!). He also took the time to thank Sportful for working hard on his clothing throughout the season.
As always there was a lot of funny moments, he joked about the fact that Paolo Bettini had been one of those who didn’t think he could win a long race, Bettini was only too happy to admit he had been wrong!
Sportful founder Dr. Cremonese shows Peter Sagan around the factory.
Vittorio Brumotti testing a few more tables, yep, these are OK
Sagan’s visit continued with a tour of the Sportful factory, with Brumotti guiding the way using his bike. We showed them how we make his jersey, from the first sketch to the last stitch. Sagan tried his hand at the printing process, it was a good effort but he’ll stick to riding bikes for now.
Sagan is shown how we print his World Champion Jersey
Another jersey ready for the World Champion
After a quick snack it was time for the next part of the event – Road Bike Football… The 1st rule of Road Bike Football is that no one knows the rules…
Brumotti practises his ball skills while Sagan gets changed, the Dolomites looming behind Sportful HQ
With no referee this game of football was somewhat chaotic
Sagan volleys the ball at goalkeeper Bettini…
After a while of Bettini being too good a goalkeeper for both of them they decided to start playing around on the walls and stairs of the factory…
Brumotti abandons the game to go jump over some stuff
Sagan and the Sportful staff
Thankfully no injuries later and after a few hundred autographs and selfies Sagan signed his last signature of the day on our wall of fame.
One last autograph before he went… the first athlete to sign our new Wall of Fame
All photos – POCIS
Watch the Sagan Day video here –
