Trek Factory Racing will bring on Italian coffee giant Segafredo Zanetti as co-sponsor for the 2016 season, according to a report in La Gazzetta dello Sport, and may attempt to lure 2014 Tour de France champion Vincenzo Nibali (in the picture). The American team is managed by Italian Luca Guercilena and holds a number of Italians within its ranks, but those connections alone might not have been enough to bring on a major Italian sponsor like Segafredo Zanetti.
It’s no surprise, then, that Gazzetta’s story rekindles rumors that the team is courting Tour de France champion Nibali, noting that with Segafredo on board, the team now has “the weapons to seduce him.”
Segafredo Zanetti would be the latest in a long-line of coffee sponsors within pro cycling, including the famous Saeco team of Mario Cipollini, Cafe de Colombia in the late 1980s, and Faema, a sponsor of teams and events in the Merckx era.
The report comes on the same day that Trek announced a new relationship with Mapei Sports, a center owned and funded by the same company that used to sponsor the famed Mapei pro team.
