Pippotorium

2007 Tour du Haut-Var: Pippo gave the “all clear” signal for the podium celebrations to commence soon after he outsprinted Simon Gerrans and Ricardo Serrano in Draguignan.

Credit> Sirotti via Cycletime.com.

It’s disappointing—if not totally disheartening—that images from Pippo Pozzato & Friends Charity Soccer Event are only to be discovered on Pippo’s FaceBook via rabid search engine, er, search. Yes, indeed, I could pilfer pictures from there via Screenkap Magick (TM) to post here but that’d reveal I applied no overt efforts in the search for picspam; and effortlessness in the search for picspam puts into question such how devoted one is to picspamming, no?

Anyway, besides the appearance of FuckYeahPhilippeGilbert because Fuck Yeah Cycling Awareness is of the utmost importance, there’s newsworthy news to post here; said news is that Pippo’s Back on Track, hence the track-centric photo. Cute coincidence, no? Even better than seeing Our Subject maybe, perhaps, doing Six Days (still in Katusha colors) is that his 2012 season begins in San Luis which means picspam earlier than Qatar and Oman. There’s no official “official” confirmation of where his new team will race in Belgium during Spring but hopefully they’ll be at most of the Classics, possibly on MCipollini bikes—yikes!

Credit: Bettini Photo via CyclingNews (2008).

2010 Tour of Qatar…or Oman? Whatever, whichever: Clearly your administrators [who likes to speak of herself in the plural like old-fashioned Royals] enjoy posting images of the Italian Tricolore so, um, so there.

Credit: Luis Barbosa via Some Message Board.

2010: Here be upclose details of the (in)famous “Only God Can Judge Me” and Koi tattoos.

Credit: Ewoud Broeksma.

2008 Milano Six Day: Pippo and Luke Roberts were runners-up at the multi-day track event behind Joan Llaneras and Paolo “Grillo” Bettini who was retiring after the event.

Credit: Roberto Bettini via Road Bike Action.

2009 Paris-Roubaix: The runner-up to Tommeke, Pippo, premiered the beginnings of the “Only God Can Judge Me” tattoo which cause much snark among naysayers.

Credit: Via Skynet.be.

Gentlemen from Film Noir chronically wear hats outdoors but they do not dabble in man cleavage a la Pippo, no?

Credit: If you are without corrective lenses—ocular performance enhancers?—to glimpse the watermark it says “KDPhotos.it.”

Does anyone else encounter imagination deficiencies when attempting to imagine Vladimir Karpets with frosted mullet having glamour shots for Russian Playboy?

Credit: From Italian Playboy (2009).

Try Googling “Pozzato” and “Playboy. So, what’d you get? Google claims it’s got over 34,800 results. Just scanning over them you’re find paid writers and forum folks writing how Pippo’s “the last true Italian playboy” and “the undisputed playboy of the peloton” and the like. Baloney, says I, it’s all a marketing ploy! So some guy with fashion flair owns a red Ferrari and lives in glamour mecca Monaco, so what? That isn’t calculus so Vulcan logic needn’t apply; it’s human so it involves smoke and mirrors to create images that are not necessarily reality for whatever the ends are (re: advertisers and politicians).

Look, read what’s the definition of a playboy, m’kay? If too lazy to check with Wikis think of Mr Playboy as a hedonistic dude—probably a douchebag to boot—with money so he didn’t have to do jack squat except file his nails between club engagement like a male Paris Hilton. Hello, really, do male athletes [basketballers up for debate] really got the time to be playboys? Hell no. Especially them underpaid and underappreciated cyclists who have one ginormous workload that definitely doesn’t end when off the bike; they’re whole sporting lives revolve around their body which totally sounds like exploitation but whatever. Also of note, if anyone’s read this far, remember Pippo, alleged playboy, was in a committed relationship since he was on Fassa Bortolo until his Giro stage win; it was committed enough that he got her named tattooed on his forearm in Japanese. 

Now, back to marketing. A cyclist’s got to distinguish himself. Wins help, but sometime’s a little flash and pizzazz is needed to further differentiate the product from competitors seeking the few pro berths. Now what sells? Hmm, I wonder—oh yeah, sex! People definitely like to read and write about the intimate lives of celebrities; they might know what’s going on but if you’re young with pretty and/or money then you must be doing something. Obviously logic can be recalled now for this formula: professional cyclist + lothario playboy = ZOMG LET’S PAY ATTENTION 2 JAMES BOND ON WHEELS! Heck, it even seems Mark Cavendish bought it…unless he was in on the joke when he wrote his book. Alas, once the reputation of playboy cyclist is established there’s so escape so why not pose nude for Sidi shoes, eh? Anyway, this isn’t making much sense so just enough pic of Pippo from Playboy—the magazine. 

Credit: From Italian Playboy (2009).

Circa 2001: I am distracted neither by rolled sleeves nor shoeless socks, let alone the psychedelic Mapei pattern, because those bright bidons that look like ketchup bottles distract me from the subject of this photo.

Credit: Would you believe MySpace?

Road to the 2009 Tour de France: Prince Albert of Monaco hearts sports, cycling among them, so he was happy to pose with professionals Pippo, Spartacus, and Tosatto, all participants in the Grand Bocoule which began in the itty-bitty principality which attracts cyclists including Pippo, PhilGil, and Vino.

Credit: If you cannot decipher the watermark it says “Tim de Waele.”

2008 Gran Gala Bike Show: Gibo and Pippo were among the honored guests at “the end” of the season celebration.

Credit: Davide Tricarico via BikeShowTV.

2008: Let the title act as the caption too.

Credit: Sirotti via Daily Peloton.

2010 Classics Seasons [Paris-Roubaix?]: Ya’ll even happier now with more road wary and worn Pippo, m’kay?

Credit: Photo News via DeMorgen.be.

2010 Milano-San Remo: Since ya’ll seems to heart “Pippo covered in mud [that is not of the exfoliating type]” pics, well, here’s another filled with post race angst.

Credit: Milansanremo.co.uk.

2010 Katusha Team Training Camp: We here at the Pippo Appreciation Society are baffled and bewildered by Astana fans posting pictures of team Katusha at Astanafans.com. We are—or rather were committed to investigating this picture posting intrigue, among the many thousands in Cycledom not involving the UCI but let us not digress; however, we decided against the investigation because it is positively Pippo picspam. And picspam is picspam. And pretty picspam is PRETTY. And SHINY. And PRECIOUS—hey, quiet Gollum! Yes, pretty poolside picspam with Pippo which there is not enough of so will Pippo someday—PLEASE!—race at Curaçao to have his picture taken with the dolphins?

Credit: ????? via Toscana/Astana Cycling Team Fan Club.

2007: Within minutes of the race, how much time do riders devote to adjusting, say, helmets and sunglasses? Perhaps some of the rituals are rooted in superstitions. The use of teeth to hold bidons and sunglasses is not advised around parents who paid for braces but that digresses from the subject of this blog—Pippo!

Credit: Gregor Brown via CyclingNews.

2004 Tour de France, Stage 7: After surviving the undulating roads from Chateaubriant (not to be confused with the wine Chateaubriand) to Saint Brieuc (dedicated to one of those obscure Celtic saints), for 204.5 kilometers, Pippo defeated breakaway companions Iker Flores, Francisco Mancebo, and Laurent Brochard, he of the famous mullet; most of the peloton finished ten seconds behind the quartet.

Credit: Olympia Photo via CyclingNews.

2003 Tirreno-Adriatico, Stage 7: We give you but one guess as to who won “the race of the two seas.”

Credit: Sirotti via CyclingNews.

2002 Tour de Normandie, Stage 5: Pippo celebrated atop the podium his latest stage win, his fourth of the race including the prologue.

Credit: Jean-Francois Quenet via CyclingNews.