2013 UCI World Championships-Toscana, Italy

The website for the 2013 UCI World Championships-Toscana (Tuscany), Italy, has been updated today with a promo video and a video with the course information. The Regione Toscana is a partner in the project with these Tuscan cities playing important roles in the championships: Firenze, Lucca (where Mario Cipollini hails from), Pistoia, Montecatini Terme, and Fiesole. The dates are September 22-29, 2013.

The website is www.toscana2013.it (not all sections are finished).

Also noted on the website with interest was this piece about Alfredo Martini:

"You cannot talk about cycling, especially an event in Tuscany, without mentioning Alfredo Martini, born 1921 in Firenze (Florence). A life for cycling, from race driver to coach with an unequaled career record. His career as a cyclists lasted from 1941 to 1957. The clever domestique won the Giro dell’Apennino 1947, Giro del Piemonte 1950, the stage to Florence of the 1950 Giro d’Italia, which he finished as an overall third behind Koblet and Bartali, wearing the pink jersey for one day, he won one stage of the 1951 Tour de Suisse, finishing another time third behind Kubler and Koblet. After his career as a cyclist, he became coach of the national team, leading to their World Championship titles Francesco Moser 1977 in San Cristobal (Venezuela), Giuseppe Saronni 1982 in Goodwood (Great Britain), Moreno Argentin 1986 in Colorado Springs (USA), Maurizio Fondriest 1988 in Renaix (Belgium), Gianni Bugno 1991 in Stuttgart (Germany) and Benidorm (Spain) in 1992, along with other seven silver and seven bronze medals. He is one of the outstanding characters of Italian cycling, an extraordinary person, historic memory of the “Giro” and untiring narrator of anecdotes related to cycling. Since 1998 he is supervisor of all national teams and honorary president of the Italian Cycling Federation FCI."

The promo:


The courses:


Tomorrow, at the 2012 World Championships, the Elite Women's Road Race (129 km) will be held. That will be followed on Sunday with the Elite Men's Road Race (267 km). The men's Squadra Azzurra will go on the offensive in Sunday’s world championships road race in Valkenburg. Italian coach Paolo Bettini promised that his riders will break open the race. Designated to go for gold is Vincenzo Nibali. "You won’t see the team playing catenaccio (defense). We don’t have a Gilbert or a Valverde, so we can't afford to wait.”


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