“Belvedere” rides for peace with a Ukrainian team

The 35th team at the start of the 83rd edition of the Giro del Belvedere on Monday, April 18th, is Eurocar-Grawe. “After living 30 days in bomb shelters, being able to start is our real victory”

Now it’s official: the Giro del Belvedere will welcome a 35th team on Easter Monday, April 18th in Villa di Cordignano (Treviso). Team Eurocar-Grawe, a UCI Continental category squad from Ukraine, will be on the starting line of the international U23 classic.

A meaningful invitation, in the name of solidarity, from the organizers of the Pro Belvedere, made possible by Lorenzo Carrara’s intermediation, for a team and a group of young men who are experiencing the pain of the ongoing war in their home Country. The Ukrainian team, led by Sport Director Oleksii Kasianov, has its HQ in Vyshgorod, Kiev, and counts only on local athletes.

“Just 10 km away from our headquarters, the separatists occupied the territories, destroyed residential buildings, and carried out terrible actions against our people – commented Kasianov -. We returned to Ukraine on February 23rd after a training camp in Turkey, but the day after the war started and we had to stay and support our Country”.

The team arrived in Italy only on March 31st, and after taking part in the Trofeo Piva, it is now headed to the Giro del Belvedere.

“After a month living in bomb shelters, we have left our friends and families to fight on our front, that of bicycle races – said Kasianov -. It’s hard to talk about sports results because we couldn’t train for a month in Ukraine, but taking part in this race already represents our victory. Italian races are great for us: the level, both technical and organisational, is very high”.

Satisfied is also the head of the Organising Committee, Gianfranco Carlet.

We’ve been working to make this happen for a few weeks now, but until the very last moment there was no certainty that it would have gone through. However, we kept the 35th spot available to Team Eurocar-Grawe because we wanted to provide a moment of relief through cycling to these youngsters, who are personally experiencing this sad moment for the whole World“.

NEW TEAMS ON THE STARTING GRID

Further news is a double switch in the competing teams’ list due to injuries hitting hard on some line-ups: Dutch WPGA Cycling Amsterdam and British Zappi Racing Team have replaced EF Education-Nippo (USA) and HRE Mazowsze Serce Polski of Poland.

The route of the 83rd edition of the Giro del Belvedere is the classic one of 166,2 Km, characterized by two loops to be repeated respectively 14 and 2 times. In the first part, the highlight is the “Conche” climb, while in the final circuit the race will have its crucial moment on the Montaner climb, tackled from the Borgo Canalet side, and on the challenging stretch of Via delle Longhe.

Villa di Cordignano (Italy), April 14th, 2022

2022-04-14T15:43:15+02:0014 April 2022|

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