Pro Sponsorship
Cannondale's sponsorship of Division 1 road racing teams began with the Saeco team in the late 1990s, highlighted by Mario Cipollini's four consecutive stage wins in the 1999 Tour de France. The team notably won the Giro d'Italia five times, in 1997 with Ivan Gotti, in 2003 with Gilberto Simoni in 2004 with Damiano Cunego. Saeco became Lampre-Caffita in 2005, and the relationship with Cannondale was severed.
In 2007, Cannondale became the bicycle sponsor to Liquigas, and counted fourth and fifth Giro wins as Danilo Di Luca in 2007 and Ivan Basso in 2010 rode to victory. In 2011, they became a title sponsor under the name Liquigas-Cannondale. They also sponsored UCI Professional Continental team Barloworld in 2007 on the Tour de France and UCI Continental team Bahati Foundation in 2010.
On the mountain biking circuit, Cannondale is a sponsor for the Cannondale-Vredestein (formerly Volvo/Cannondale) racing team, the Bear Naked/Cannondale racing team (formerly SoBe/Cannondale) and various individual 24-hour racers such as Bicycling Hall of Famer and US National 24 hour Champion Tinker Juarez. A large number of notable riders have been sponsored by Cannondale at some point in their career, including world champions Anne-Caroline Chausson and Missy Giove, Olympic Silver medalist (and World Champion) Alison Sydor, Bronze medalist Christoph Sauser, "Flyin" Brian Lopes, Cadel Evans, Kashi Leuchs, Libor "The Bouncing Czech" Karas, Martyn Ashton, Lance Trappe, Aaron Chase, Myles Rockwell, Cédric Gracia, Roel Paulissen, Fredrik Kessiakoff, and Chris Van Dine, who rides for the Cannondale Cut team and demos watch team.
In triathlon racing, Cannondale has sponsored 2005 Ironman world champion Faris Al-Sultan, Dejan Patrčević, Croatian triathlon champion, as well as three time Ironman world champion Chrissie Wellington, Sarah Reinertsen, the first amputee woman to finish the Ironman Triathlon, 2004 Paralympics 200 IM gold medalist Rudy Garcia-Tolson.
Read more about this topic: Cannondale Bicycle Corporation
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