After summer holidays, Mapei Sport Center has returned to work looking at the numerous agonistic appointments awaiting the various athletes who rely on the qualified structure of Olgiate Olona (Va) in Italy. If for the football players the championship has just begun and for skiers the races has not yet start, cycling season will reach its peak this month with the World Championship scheduled in Bergen, Norway, from 16th to 24th September.
Mapei Sport last winter has reached a cooperation agreement with the Portuguese Cycling Federation, which is giving satisfaction and great results on both sides. In December, a delegation of Mapei Sport formed by Dr Claudio Pecci, Director of Health and Care of the Research Center, cycling team advisor Andrea Morelli and one of coach technicians Matteo Azzolini, went to Coimbra to meet with Delmino Pereira, UVP-FPC president, National Coordinator and track coach Gabriel Mendes and Amândio Santos, professor at the Faculty of Sports Science and Physical Education at the University of Coimbra.
Collaboration has come to the aid of a limited group of promising Under 23s riders to which Mapei Sport Research Center specialists provided support for the training and monitoring of the activity, as well as in consulting local college in order to further develop test and evaluation protocols by comparing the instruments used (ergometers, metabolometers, lattameter) to try to standardize the work model between the two laboratories and countries.
«Portugal is a rapidly expanding nation and in recent years both on the road and on the track, but also in the off-road, it has faced the world with highly competitive athletes. It recently hosted the Track European Championships at Anadia velodrome, near which a modern bmx circuit will be inaugurated soon, in the same city where, among other things, the main Mapei Spa production plant in Portugal is located» tells Dr. Pecci.
Morelli echoes him: «The young people we follow, twins Ivo and Rui Oliveira of Axeon Hagens Berman (in the photo below), Andrè Carvalho of Cipollini Iseo Rime and Joao Almeida of Unieuro Trevigiani, this year took many satisfaction in the various disciplines in which they compete but above all have grown in all respects. We wish them and to all the young people who are about to fly to Norway for the rainbow challenges a great deal of luck».
