Fassa Bortolo


Fassa Bortolo was a professional road bicycle racing team founded in 2000 and led by Giancarlo Ferretti. Dubbed the 'Silver Team', it managed to be one of the most successful teams of the era, not in the least due to top sprinter Alessandro Petacchi. In its six competitive years, Fassa Bortolo won over 200 races, including stages in all three Grand Tours. It was one of the inaugural 20 UCI ProTour teams in 2005.
Fassa Bortolo stopped the sponsorship of the team after 2005. Efforts to find a new co-sponsor for 2006 proved unsuccessful. On October 14, 2005, a man claiming to represent proposed new sponsor Sony Ericsson turned out to be an imposter, leaving all staff and riders unemployed.
Petacchi and some of his helpers moved to the new Team Milram, a continuation of the Domina Vacanze Team. The other Fassa Bortolo riders all moved to different teams.

Team 2005

The main part of the riders signed early contracts with new teams for 2006, and eventually all riders found new teams.
NameBirthdayNationality2006 team
Andrus Aug22.05.1972
Fabio Baldato13.06.1968Tenax
Lorenzo Bernucci15.09.1979
Paolo Bossoni02.07.1976Tenax
Marzio Bruseghin15.06.1974
Fabian Cancellara18.03.1981
Francesco Chicchi27.11.1981
Massimo Codol27.02.1973Tenax
Claudio Corioni26.12.1982
Mauro Facci11.05.1982
Juan Antonio Flecha17.09.1977
Dario Frigo18.09.1973Fired for doping
Massimo Giunti29.07.1974Naturino
Volodymyr Hustov15.02.1977
Andrej Hauptman05.05.1975Radenska
Kim Kirchen03.07.1978
Gustav Larsson20.09.1980
Vincenzo Nibali14.11.1984
Alberto Ongarato24.07.1975
Alessandro Petacchi03.01.1974
Roberto Petito01.02.1971Tenax
Fabio Sacchi22.05.1974
Julian Sanchez Pimienta26.02.1980
Kanstantsin Sivtsov09.08.1982
Matteo Tosatto14.05.1974
Marco Velo09.03.1974

Major wins

;2000
;2001
;2002
;2003
;2004
;2005

National champions

;2001
;2002
;2003
;2004