Domenico Pozzovivo is in line to make a record-equalling 18th appearance at the Giro d’Italia after signing a contract with VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè for the 2024 season.
The 41-year-old turned professional and made his Giro debut with the team, then known as Panaria-Navigare, in 2005, and he now returns to the fold for what he says will be his final season in the peloton. The team was recently confirmed among the wildcard invitations to the 2024 Giro.
Pozzovivo raced with Israel Premier Tech in 2023 but he was left without a contract at the end of the season, and he had initially set himself a deadline of October to find a new team. Instead, the veteran continued to train during the winter, and he announced his arrival at VF Group in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport on Sunday.
“It’s like something from a film,” Pozzovivo told La Gazzetta. “When you start off on a journey like this long ago, and then you think that after all this time and so many episodes we’ve come together again for the closing of the circle.... It sounds like the plot of a movie.”
Pozzovivo spent the first eight seasons of his career with Bruno Reverberi’s team, capping his time with a stage victory at Lago Laceno on the 2012 Giro. He moved to the WorldTour with AG2R the following season, and he later raced for Bahrain, NTT, Intermarché and Israel.
The Italian placed 5th overall at the Giro in 2014 and 2018, and he impressed again with Intermarché two years ago, helping Biniam Girmay to a stage win while riding to 8th overall in Verona.
Pozzovivo confirmed that the prospect of equalling Wladimiro Panizza’s record of 18 Giro participations had played a part in persuading him to continue for another year. So too had an ultimately disappointing 2023 season, when he abandoned the Giro on the first rest day.
“Equalling Panizza is one of the main motivations,” Pozzovivo said. “Also, I abandoned the Giro last year, and I wasn’t even able to ride Il Lombardia. It would have been a very melancholy farewell. And to be clear, I’m not thinking about stopping after the 2024 Giro, but at the end of the season at Il Lombardia.”
Pozzovivo indicated his intention to start his 2024 season at Tirreno-Adriatico – “So long as there aren’t any bureaucratic obstacles” – while La Gazzetta reported that the veteran had reserved a room at the Parador Hotel for a training camp atop Mount Teide even when he was without a team.
“I feel like an ‘old’ guy, with a very young mindset. I have no problem relating to the younger generation,” Pozzovivo said of joining a team whose selling point is the development of young talent. He will start the Giro in Turin on May 4, meanwhile, with the same ambition as ever.
“With the athletic numbers I’ve got, a place in the top ten wouldn’t be impossible.”
