Mapei (cycling team)

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Mapei was an Italian based road bicycle racing team active from 1993 to 2002, named after sponsoring firm Mapei. From 2003 Mapei dropped the sponsorate, and a new team was built on top of the old with the name of Quick Step-Davitamon.

Mapei was one of the strongest teams during the late 1990s, and ranked as the strongest UCI team in 1994-2000 and 2002.

The team had the great Belgian and Italian classic specialists of the 1990s such as Johan Museeuw, Michele Bartoli, Andrea Tafi, Franco Ballerini, and had Patrick Lefevre as directeur sportif and then manager. The team won Paris-Roubaix five times. Three times (1996^[1], 1998^[2] and 1999^[3]) the team even won the first three places. In the 1996 edition, the sprint for the line was decided 15km from the finish. Directeur sportif Patrick Lefevere who was following the race in the team car talked with the owner of Mapei Squinzi in Milan who said that Museeuw was to win the race. Gianluca Bortolami was second while Andrea Tafi was third.^[1] In 1998 Franco Ballerini won the race with over four minutes ahead of his two teammates Tafi and Wilfried Peeters.^[2] and in 1999 Tafi won with an advantage of two minutes over teammates Peeters and Tom Steels. In the summer of 2000, Lefevre announced that the Belgian part of the Mapei team would be leaving the team to form a new team called Domo-Farm Frites which had Museeuw as team captain. As a result, there was a great rivalry between the two team.^[4]

Mapei was less dominating in the Grand Tours. The only true stage race specialist was Tony Rominger, who won the 1994 Vuelta a España and the 1995 Giro d'Italia for the team. As Rominger focused on the Tour de France in 1996, Abraham Olano was given the leadership role at the Giro d'Italia in 1996. Olano took the maglia rosa but lost it in the mountains and during the Tour, Rominger lost time in the mountains. The team never played a major role in the Tour de France.

The official names of the team changes with the cosponsors several times. The team has ran under the following names: Mapei (1993) Mapei-Clas (1994), Mapei-GB (1995-1997), Mapei-Bricobi (1998), Mapei-Quickstep (1999-2002).