A comparison between two of the winningest Italian sprinters in recent history
In 2010 a rider called Andrea Guardini had one of the most dominant seasons in the history of the Italian amateur cycling circuit. Despite being up against lots of now professional riders including Giacomo Nizzolo, he clocked up 19 wins all coming in mass sprint finishes. Not surprisingly at all he joined the professional peloton in the following year signing a two-year contract with the Pro-Continental squad Vini Fantini.
It didn't take any time for Guardini to make his mark riding with the pros. In fact, his first stage race, the Tour de Langkawi, was a big success for the Italian as he won five of the ten stages, including the opening stages one and two. With the roads being wide open and none of his rivals ready to match his speed, Guardini was almost unstoppable. With eleven wins in his pro season he was quickly talked up to being the successor of Alessandro Petacchi. Winning his first Giro d'Italia stage in just his second season and doing it going head to head with one of the best sprinters of all time in Mark Cavendish, the future looked bride for Guardini.
Four years after Guardinis dominant showing in Italy, a rider called Jakub Mareczko bursted onto the scene. After a relatively slow start to the season during which he was beaten multiple times by Nicolas Marini, Mareczko started to get the better of his rival and at the end of 2014 he had 13 wins to his name, the most amount of wins any Italian amateur had achieved since Guardini. Guardinis former team now called Southeast took the chance to sign the talented sprinter as a neo pro starting in 2015.
Mareczkos first pro race this year was the Vuelta a Tachira in Venezuela and just like Guardini in Langkawi four years ago, the young sprinter was just one level ahead of the competition and took two of the first four stages. He later in the year followed it up with wins in the Vuelta a Venezuela and the Tour of Hainan (beating Giro d'Italia stage winner Sacha Modolo) before going on an absolute rampage at the Tour of Taihu Lake winning every single stage that was decided in a mass sprint (seven out of nine) and every jersey of the Chinese event (overall, points and youth). He finished his first pro season with 13 wins matching his total of his last amateur season.
So Guardini and Mareczko both dominated one year in Italy before racking up victories in smaller Asian races. But how similar are they as riders? And would it even be a good thing for Mareczko to be considered the new Guardini?
Lets first take a look at their build. Guardini is listed by procyclingstats.com as 1,75 m (though I think he might even be a little smaller than this) and 66 kg while Mareczko is listed as 1,69 m and 68 kg. Looking at this numbers it seems that Mareczko has a more compact body but this differential may be caused by the fact that Mareczko who has just turned pro this year still has some "unnecessary" muscles he needs to get rid of to lose some more weight.
Even if this assumption is incorrect and Guardini is the lighter of the two, he hasn't been able to use it to his advantage in climbs. In fact, both Guardini and Mareczko are considered terrible climbers which leads to the question if it is just a funny coincidence that both of them are from Italy. Why isn't there a French Guardini or a Belgian Guardini?
I believe it is a product of the Italian system and let me explain you why. In Italy there are basically two types of races one being the pan flat races like the Circuito del Porto (the only UCI race Mareczko won as an amateur) which are raced at an unbelievable speed and result in mass sprint finishes. Non-climbers like Guardini and Mareczko thrive in these races but once they race in Belgium for example, they really struggle because all of a sudden there are hills and cobbles and wind and they get dropped on the first incline. The problem is that being fast is enough to win lots of races in Italy. As a direct result not every big Italian sprinter makes it with the pros (see for example Filippo Fortin who was also big time as an amateur).
Another point that is closely related to this is that after both the first wins of Guardini and Mareczko as pros, people have said that they "came out of nowhere". With the introduction I have given you it is easy to see that this is not the case. In fact, the competition they faced in Italy as an amateur could have been superior to the competition in .2 races like the Vuelta a Venezuela. But because these amateur races can not be looked up on sites like procyclingstats.com fans don't realise they even exist. So they don't really "came out of nowhere" but it looked this way because they hadn't shown anything in a race outside of Italy before turning pro.
So Guardini and Mareczko are both very fast and can't climb. Since Guardini has been a pro for some time now there remains the question weather he has delivered on his promise. I say no although I might get a lot of hate for this. Yes, he won 35 races in his five years as a pro which is an amount most sprinters would dream about. But 18 of these victories came at the Tour de Langkawi and only two were at World Tour events (besides one stage of the Giro d'Italia in 2012 he also won one stage of the Eneco Tour in 2014). I think the main thing that is holding Guardini back is his Astana team which is more focused on the general classification than on sprints and often leaves him alone or at least without legit help in the biggest mass sprints.
It is impossible to say weather Mareczko will take a different path. I think it is a good sign that he has decided to stay with Southeast at least until the end of 2017. The team will take part in big races like the Giro d'Italia and Mareczko will be their protected sprinter.
Besides Guardini is not the only sprinter he reminds me of as he has a sprinting style very similar to that of the great Mark Cavendish (I suggest you look it up on Youtube). But that would be a really unfair comparison for anybody.
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