MAK @ HANDBIKE: Active Team La Leonessa

29 July 2022

The goals of MAK-sponsored Active Team La Leonessa continue… Giuseppe Uberti and Mirko De Cortes wore the pink jersey in early April in Bari, Italy, winning the inaugural stage of the Giro d’Italia handbike 2022, and three (abundant) months later the two athletes from Active Team La Leonessa continue to wear it with merit. There were four more stages, in Bellaria Igea Marina, Meda, Udine and then Sunday’s in Cerro Maggiore (Milan), with terrible heat making everything more complicated, especially for athletes with particularly disabling disabilities. Still, there at the top of the standings are always them: Uberti, 62 years old from Erbusco, has to say thanks to an endless series of placings in the MH1 category, which after his success in Puglia saw him finish four times in a row in second place and pull away from his rivals in the points standings.

De Cortes, 45, from Calcinato, on the other hand, is winning repeatedly among the MH5s: he only missed out on the second stage on the Romagna Riviera, while in the other four he has hit the jackpot and is increasingly sniffing the dream of wearing the jersey until the conclusion of the seventh and final race, on Oct. 16 in Pisa. In the meantime, he’s taking it on vacation just like Uberti, as the sixth event is scheduled in Livorno on Sept. 18. It means that there will be a couple of months off from competitions, both from the Giro Handbike and from that national club championship that recently saw Uberti himself great protagonist, with three successes in the last three appointments, in Parma, Somma Lombardo and Pescantina. But training knows no rest.

In Cerro Maggiore, Active Team La Leonessa also partied among the MH2s thanks to the Venetian Omar Rizzato, at his second consecutive success at the Giro and capable of recovering precious points in the overall standings from leader Manolo Simeoni, now only eight points behind. Even closer to the pink jersey is Mirko Testa, absent on stage five but separated by only six points from the first among the MH3s, Loreto Di Loreto. For the Brescia-based company in the Milanese also three other top-5 placings: in MH1, Giannino Piazza finished fourth, who retains the black jersey of last in the overall standings, while in MH4 Franco Tonoli came within a whisker of the podium.

Claudio Pietroboni also placed the same way in MH5. All goals that, together with many other placings, allow the Brescian company to keep the red jersey of Fast Team, the first team in Italy adding up the points of all its athletes. “Precisely this,” says captain Sergio Balduchelli, “is the result that makes us most proud, because it is the result of everyone’s commitment. Despite extreme conditions the boys did great things, but beyond the final placing there is more. For me they are all number ones.”

Also on the subject of handbikes, Maurizio Antonini’s Mission Possible is continuing apace: the great journey from Brescia to Cape North with only the strength of his arms. Leaving Thursday, June 23, from Piazza della Loggia, the 56-year-old from Castegnato, a founding member of Active Sport, is currently in Sweden, having traveled more than 2,200 kilometers on his handbike. A human and social experience all to follow, also through the initiative’s social pages on Instagram (@missionpossiblehandbike) and Facebook (Mission Possible Handbike).