io pensavo derivasse dal nome di Raphael Geminiani...
All'epoca vi era il divieto di sponsorizzazione di aziende extra settore, giocando sull'assonanza del nome aggirarono tale divieto.
Sponsorship
Géminiani at the 2010
Brive-la-Gaillarde book fair
Géminiani dropped out of racing when only cycle manufacturers were allowed to sponsor teams but fewer of them had the money to do so. Géminiani had sponsored himself and others to publicise bicycles made under his name. But it was on signing Jacques Anquetil that he needed more money than the cycle industry could provide. There had been sponsors from outside the business before - the first was ITP Pools, a soccer betting company which sponsored semi-professionals in Britain, but they were small and of little interest to the governing body, the
Union Cycliste Internationale. Nothing happened even when
Fiorenzo Magni secured sponsorship in Italy from the company that made
Nivea face cream. An outside sponsor in the land of the Tour de France, where organisers
Jacques Goddet and
Félix Lévitan had great political strength, was different.
Géminiani sold his team to the St-Raphaël
apéritif company to coincide with the opening of the Tour de France to commercial teams in 1962. Goddet, Lévitan and their Tour were against
extra-sportif sponsors, fearing powerful rivals and worried that advertising on jerseys was space that sponsors need no longer buy in their newspaper,
L'Équipe. Géminiani was threatened with suspension. He tried to claim that "Raphaël" referred not to the company but to himself. The argument lasted all winter and reached the UCI. It continued until
Milan–San Remo, by which
time a decision was essential. The UCI was against outside sponsorship but its president, Achille Joinard, was in favour. According to Géminiani, Joinard told him:
“ | "Go to the start with an ordinary jersey. Just before the off, take off the jerseys and wear your St-Raphaël shirts. I will send a telegram forbidding you from starting if you represent an extra-sportif. But I'll take care that the telegram arrives only after the race has started."[citation needed] | ” |
Joinard saw commercial sponsorship as the future but also had a history of disagreements with Lévitan in particular over who carried the most weight in cycling.
Raphaël Géminiani was a French road bicycle racer. He had three podium finishes in the Grand Tours. He was one of four children of Italian immigrants who moved ...
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