• The Cycling News forum is looking to add some volunteer moderators with Red Rick's recent retirement. If you're interested in helping keep our discussions on track, send a direct message to @SHaines here on the forum, or use the Contact Us form to message the Community Team.

    In the meanwhile, please use the Report option if you see a post that doesn't fit within the forum rules.

    Thanks!

Matteo Fabbro is the new Pozzovivo

A small Italian climber (167cm tall and 52km light) who took his time to emerge as a great rider.
In the u23 ranks he crashed a lot and was never inside the top 10 on the gc in the big races, but he showed signs of his talent.
fabbro_web.jpg

LP_11724408-640x350.jpg.webp

in 2016 he won the Diexner Bergrennen, 24sec ahead of Pernsteiner and over 1min ahead of Freiberger (who finished 6th and 7th in the Österreich-Rundfahrt that year) on this climb:
DiexS.gif

The same year he also finished 2nd in the Bassano-Monte Grappa, behind Riabushenko. He also finished 3rd in the Tour of Bihor behind Bernal and Rodolfo Torres, 7th in the Giro del Belveedere and 13th in the Tour de L' Avenir.

In 2017 he finished 3rd in the Giro del Belvedere, he was the only one who could follow Hamilton on the last ascent of the murito. Only 6 days after racing the Palio del Recinto he started the La Vuelta de la Juventud de Colombia with the Italian national team, so no time to adjust to the jetlag and the altitude. He still finished 9th on the big Alto de Letras MTF before crashing out of the race.
et3-alt.jpeg

The same year he won the uphill prologue in the Giro della Valle d'Aosta, 9 seconds ahead of Sivatkov (he put 59sec in a decent climer like Knox). It was an 8km uphill ITT at 4.9km, so the big engines where actually supposed to beat the lightweight climbers. He did finish 11th on the gc, but his whole season was kinda ruined by 3 bigger crashes, at the end of thhe season he won th San Luca MTT and the San Daniele del Friuli race.


In 2018 he turned pro with Katusha, his first impressive result was a 19th place in the Tour de Romandie ITT against a top level field. He also finished 8th in the Tour of Turkey.
photo-medium.jpg


In 2019 he finished 10th on the Green Mountain MTF in the Tour of Oman an 8th in the Italian NC, where he showed a decent sprint for such a lightweight.

In 2020 he finished 9th in the Tour de San Luis ITT where Remco destroyed all life on earth only to get blown away by crosswinds on the Alto del Colorado stage. He was overtaken on the last meters by MVDP and Guerreiro on the hilly T-A stage, before riding a solid Giro as a climbing domestique (his most impresive performance came on the Piancavallo stage).

This year he took it to the next level, 5th overall in Tirreno-Adriatico. Him and Landa where the only riders besides Pogi and Wout to finish top 10 on both the MTF and the Murito stage.

How far can he go? He seems to be a really good climber who has a surprisingly good engine on hilly terrain. I've always seen his recovery as his biggest weakness, but after seeing him in this race I'm not sure that he couldn't become a gc rider down the line. Bora seem to be really good at slowly developing their gc riders over multiple years, so he's probably on the right team.
 
Last edited:
Was actually considering opening a thread for him today as well. But you did a far better job than I would've done.

Following him since his U23 days and even closer since his Romandie ITT in '18. He seems to be a very genuine and sweet guy in his interviews and on the socials. Very happy he got that place at Bora last year and both him and the team really stepped it up in his development. He seems to fit in well and with Aleotti there too, maybe there is a growing Friulian influece in the team.
He will be a great lieutenant to Emu Buchmann in May.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Sandisfan

TRENDING THREADS