Geox, according to the marketing claims, is ‘the shoe that breathes.’
They must be gasping for breath at this point. As disgruntled lead sponsor, they’ve sunk a decent sized chunk of revenue into Mauro Gianetti’s Geox TMC team. So far it’s been nothing but disappointment and power struggles.
First, the Tour de France gave away all the wild cards to French teams with lower rankings than Geox and ignored the marque names of 2008 Tour winner Carlos “chronic fatigue” Sastre and third place podium guy Denis Menchov. No Paris-Nice, either, footwear kings. A kick in the face and loss of breath.
Then with barely time to catch their corporate breath, RCS Sport, organizer of the Tirreno – Adriatico, boots them off the start list. Brutal, a kick to the stomach, say a size 12 Paul, the classic pull-on boot in the Geox product mix. The boot looks great but don’t expect to see it July 2nd for the start of La Grande Boucle — no invitation.
Like Gianetti or not, you have to feel for the guy. Nobody understands the mystery show the UCI runs to determine who gets a ProTeam license or not. The entire sport is a confused, multi-national mess and even experienced riders like HTC-Highroad road captain Bernhard Eisel don’t understand what the hell is going on with the non-governing body. When even argyle genius Jonathan Vaughters is confused, you know the situation is in deep crisis.
It’s been a bad day in the footwear world. ASO and RCS just served Geox-TMC there walking papers.
The snub is small compensation for those friggin' Footon kits last season. Gianetti must prove he can supply less offensive kits for his team for at least 2 seasons before I'd let him back to the show.
There's a theme here — ugly Geox footwear, ugly Footon foot on jersey. Makes perfect sense. Matt