The Team Of Amateurs Who SHOCKED Pro Cycling | GCN Racing News Show

This week, Dan Lloyd is rounding up all the action from the national championships last week, including the exclusive inside story on how a club team defied all the odds to beat some HUGE names at the Italian Elite National Champs! 🏆

⏱️ Timestamps: ⏱️
00:00 Welcome to the GCN Racing News Show!
00:19 This Week In the World of Racing 🚴‍♂️🏁
01:56 Italy’s National Championships Recap
04:14 Giorgio Brambilla on Swatt Club’s Win
12:52 More National Championship Victories
15:51 Don’t miss our Tour de France Preview Show on Wednesday

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coming up on this week’s GCN Racing News Show a roundup of the national championships from last week including the exclusive inside story on how a club team defied all the odds to beat some huge names at the Italian Elite National Champs this week in the world of racing we learned that it was a good weekend for our international GCN presenters so at the Italian elite men’s road championships Gian Italia presenter Giio Brambila was directing the SWAT club team from the car and against all odds as I mentioned in the intro they won filipo Conquer a former world tour pro beat Aleandro Kovi in the sprint to the line whilst double Zift Academy finalist Matia Guroui also the SWAT club got fifth more on that later on uh these though were the scenes from the fan club upon hearing the result absolutely brilliant stuff well done to the SWAT team always great to see the underdogs take it to the big guns plus Marie Len whose boyfriend is Gon Fron presenter Louis Ple won the French title again more on both of those races later on we also learned that the first red card in pro cycling has been handed out by the UCI oscar Reese of Alpasind Kerning was the recipient off the back of two infractions at the Tour of Belgium he apologized for the incident and has served a 7-day ban that saw him miss the Dutch national championships at the weekend but it means that he will be able to make his tour to France debut this coming Saturday and finally we learned there’s a new special kit for the Tour to France for UAE Team Emirates XRG a subtle design shift from what we’ve been used to seeing earlier this season obviously though Pagat Jar is unlikely to wear it as it’s highly likely he’ll be swapping the rainbow bands for a leaders jersey fairly early on in the race okay on to the national championships from last week i’m actually going to start with Belgium because that was a cracking race full of hitters one man who was absent was Vanard who claimed he was ill however I should point out it’s obligatory for Belgium professionals to compete at the race under federation rules so if it doesn’t really fit in with your tour to France’s preparation plans it’s quite handy to get ill that weekend anyway all eyes are on Remco Aanapool of Sudal Quickstep who’d won the individual time trial during the week he made the front group and was his usual aggressive self it looked like he was gradually wearing the others down probably ahead of making his big move however it was Tim Wellins of UAE who landed that blow behind apool got increasingly frustrated with Yasper Philipser who refused to work with him and so Wellandins ended up sailing to a well- earned win he’s clearly on fire ahead of the tour to France in fact his first win of the season so far and that means he’s now won at least one pro race every year since 2014 in the women’s it was world champion Lot Capeek who was the center of attention with so much focus on her every move it was very difficult for her to go anywhere taking advantage of that situation was age insurance Sudal’s Justine Gakira who took her first national road title capeki though had won the time trial a few days previous which was her seventh consecutive title in that discipline in Italy Victoria Guatzini outpowered Alisa Longo Bulgini to secure the women’s elite time trial but the UAE rider was in a class of her own in the road race winning that for the sixth time in her career but as promised back to the men’s race and what a ride from Filippo Conquer and the SWAT team there were a large number of World Tour pros and teams who were expected to dominate that day but they were outclassed by what is just a club team now I think Marco Pinati put it best over on X there he said yet another reality check for Italian cycling at road national championships there SWAT Club taught a lesson for all congratulations to them for dominating the race with five unknown to most and underrated riders and to be clear I’m the first one that needed such a lesson it’s such a big story really isn’t it i wanted to catch up with Giorgio Branbila to get the inside story on what was an epic day for that team giio firstly huge congratulations i don’t suppose it’s sunk in yet but I wanted to start by asking you some background of the team itself because it’s not a pro team at any level not first division second division or third division it’s a club team isn’t it
yeah it’s the first division so amateur yeah it’s it’s a it’s a team that can race uh national races and also until point two races so 1.2 2.2 not more so is definitely not a pro team but in Italy this guy has the possibility to take part to the Italian national championship if they have the ability to take five of five pedration point looks like a a fourth in a point to race in UCI points like something like that so we we had uh five guys that reached this this target and we was able to take part to the race and uh at the end we we made the race and that was something incredible but the point is that this this guy was was they didn’t deserve to be in a team so small that are old guy that deserve to be in a bigger team and for some reason they they was reacted by war and professional teams so we the project of Vatab is to take this guy that has no future and give them another possibility race for free start to studying or do another job part-time just for finance themsel in this this period of their life they have one year to to show their strength just focusing on the the race that they want to do without stress from outside without the necessary to do a um a domestic they are able to to play their cards and uh that was happen
yeah well I wouldn’t diminish the um the result that you got because as you said there were a lot of bigname riders at the race and everyone’s focus is obviously going to be on the world tour riders you know likes of Gan and Trenton and all the other big names that were there
so although it was the biggest race of your season it’s still a tremendous result obviously you were saying to me before we started recording that the SWAT club is is basically the biggest amateur club team in in Italy and maybe Europe
yeah yeah more than thousand people that uh have the the license of ZWAT club for real amateur so people that take part and criterium and uh we have also this elite team that is not amateur is amateur in a large way to think because they ride the bike without being paying but they can race of UCI races of course but yes the the community is very very big is the is something that motivate also our rider because the connection between amateur that love cycling and this guy that arrived from bigger team or they want to come back in the cycling that uh is important is very very unique
so what was the aim and what was the game plan ahead of the start of the race yesterday like you were in the team car you must have had a team talk beforehand what what were you what were you aim what would have been a good result for you at the end of the day at the end my my role was not so big like people thinks outside first of all because the the the radio was not allowed in this kind of race so I cannot conduct the tactics during the race i say to the guy that they added essentially two target first being a breakway at the beginning and and resist until 2 and 50 because Ry the biggest media in Italy will start to transmit the race from from 250 so it’s important to show the this team in in the national television and second target if you feel good legs try to stay with the big S attack and the final and the what what they done the different between other team in other things that we race all the season without the radio so we are used to do briefing and debriefing on after every stages so the the guys have the ability to learn out from their uh their mistakes and they’re used to talk each other during the race for decided tactics all together so it’s something that big team will not do because the sport director do the tactic from them by from the car but this guy are used to race from uh from themsel about the tactics so
So when did you start to get excited at the potential big result because you had a couple of riders up the front of the race there a lot of our viewers will know Matia Gafuri from being the Zift Academy finalist the last two years
you had Conquer obviously there the eventual winner as well so when did you start to get excited that there was going to be this potential big result yeah of course when when we we passed the last K of K of King of Mountain and Cona was still in the in the first group and when Gaffu come back in the first group and start to pull I realized that Kona could really win the sprint because he’s is the fastest one and with the with the Gaffu support and Gaffu was very very clever because he was in the first position kovi that is fast was in the second position and Gaffu stopped to pull at 350 m to Kovi has to start very very long and conquer pass him and more so Gaffu was very very clever and and also give his effort for help is a teammate without anybody asking so was also a guy that deserve to be in a pro team i I hope that he can find a contract this year and the reaction was incredible both in the team car your reaction in there but also from the fan club corner as you said it’s one of the biggest amateur teams in Europe if not the biggest and to see the reaction from the people there when they found out the result
i’ve not seen something like that in a long time
no because one of the one of the key word of this team is aparten so being part of So all these guys feel they are being part of the elite team also if you’re just amateur so when a guy of the team win is like your your favorite soccer team win it’s not like a it’s not like a a team that you are just fans win it’s like your really team that you love win so it’s something different and it’s more more something more correlated to other sport other team sport like soccer basketball something like that than than cycling like we normally saw in cycling so it’s very very intense and unique
how was the reaction from the other pros i think they they of course they do some mistakes because in a normal life uh this kind of result will not happens we are not this we’re not stronger than the guy arrived behind us we reach this result i think we did that just because not just but one of the main reason is that in Italy at war level we still not have a lot of a lot of champion at the end the only two guy that are used to win are Ghana and Milan that was in the bunch yesterday all the other guys normally are domestics so if you race all the season like a domestic and you your average performance peak was around 89% without never reach the 100% when you find guy that are are not maybe strong like you but you they are focused just to to training for six eight months just to reach the 100% in that day maybe that guy can can beat you also if you’re in a war team so that what’s happened yesterday
how much does this change things for the riders in your team but also the team itself i mean do you have ambitions to get up to the next level not be an amateur team or do you think the SWAT club will always be this elite without contracts an amateur trying to get up to the next level
no they are very ambitious so they say we will arrive at war tour we always say that but of course it’s is just things to say i don’t know if it’s true or not for sure next year maybe next year or two years we try to became continental and uh if yeah all of these depend on how much money we can uh we can collect with this result this year because they this team is very popular on the social media they can promote sponsor without put the sponsor on the jersey and this is something new because they want the the clean jersey but they are sponsorized by Giant by Cadex by laser Shimano so they have M they have different sponsor that are happy to support the team be present in the story on the social media but they decide to not be in the the jersey because they don’t want any any name on the jersey well congratulations once again from me to yourself and also to um Conquer and Gaffu and the rest of the team there and I’m sure that comes from our viewers as well absolutely amazing to see
thank you thank you then
so once again congratulations to SWAT club and in particular Filippo Conquer any big sponsors out there that is a team worth investing in back to the national champs then and in France Groupup and Total Energies once again had about 100 riders between them but didn’t manage to take the win dorian Gdon made it back-to- back wins for Dathlon in what was a very strong performance by him outsprinting Gregoire and Vorla two riders obviously very much on form len won the women’s after four consecutive years in the top 10 whilst Cabal and Armorai won the time trials so a very good week for Dathlon AG2R in Spain the coverage was awful there remained some controversy over the men’s time trial result in fact so the jury eventually decided that Arbor Boulderstone of Kakarura took the win the first victory of his career in what was essentially a mountain time trial ivan Romeo won the road race and the 21-year-old will make his grand tour debut at the tour this coming Saturday sarah Martin and Maria Bonito won the women’s road race and time trial respectively in the junior men’s road race in Spain 16-year-old Benjamin Noval who’s recently been signed by Inos won by four minutes meanwhile here in the UK there was a surprise winner in the women’s race millie Kusen has taken the only pro win of her career so far but it did come straight off the back of winning the U23 time travel title she outspin did five for Georgie who’s won the last two years and Anna Henderson came third but there was a solo winner in the men’s sam Watson of Inos rode away on one of the more technical parts of the finishing circuit never to be caught he’s having a brilliant season isn’t he in winning the sprint for second Matt Brennan also won the under23 title that guy just continues to impress he probably did more work than anyone else in that group and was still quicker to the line than some decent sprinters there ethan hater and Zoe Baxter won the elite time trials denmark had one of the best fields of rides in any national championship and it was a legal trek one two sir and Cra Anderson described it as the biggest win of his career so far and when you consider he’s won a couple of tour stages that really says something mass Person finished second having won the time trial earlier in the week now at this point I’d like to say a huge congratulations to Tobias Foss he was the only non Uno X rider in the top 12 of the Norwegian National Championships andreas Lechnuson took the title there while Mi Bjondal Ottoad topped to one 123 for the team in the women’s uno X also took the women’s title in Denmark with Alberta Grave the German men’s champ sounded like an absolutely epic race gail Zimmerman came out on top for Ant Mare whilst Evo Olivea won in Portugal in what sounded like ridiculously hot conditions as ever though there are too many events to go through all of them individually but well done too to Rafal Micah Lucas Kubish Rory Townsend Katherine Schwinberger Matias Vatekk Allison Jackson Marie Shriber Thomas who did the dub in Lapia Blanc and an inform Jakobel who won in Slovenia incidentally on the men’s side LeLre came away with the most titles with nine inos had eight and UAE had six right just before I finish I wanted to let you know that our big tour to France preview show is going to be out on Wednesday right here on the GN Racing YouTube channel we’ll be taking a deep dive into every single stage and all the bigname riders taking part it’s a cracking course this year i really cannot wait 5 days to go now speaking of which don’t forget you can catch a full season of bike racing live on Discovery Plus or Max okay that’s all for this week thanks for watching and I’ll see you again on Wednesday and then again next Monday to wrap up the first weekend of the tour to France malier and Vanderpool for stages one and two for me let me know your predictions in the comments section down below goodbye for now