Sports Poets Society

https://racing.trekbikes.com/stories/lidl-trek/behind-the-stripes-trek-segafredo-gm-luca-guercilena Lidl-Trek January 4, 2017 Trek-Segafredo’s press officer Tim Vanderjeugd and photographer Emily Maye capture ‘Behind the Stripes’ revealing General Manager Luca Guercilena in Milan. Luca spends over 250 days on the road managing the Trek-Segafredo team. Read along to find out how Luca balances his family and home life with his stressful job of running one of the largest cycling teams in the world. Luca Guercilena prefers skylines to landscapes, the ­racketing of cities to the peacefulness of the countryside. He’s the type who always has the television on when in a hotel room – to wash away the muteness of the space. In noise Luca finds placidity. The Guercilenas live in Cassinetta di Lugagnano in the western outskirts of Milan . It’s a great place to raise children, but not so much for a born-and-raised city boy like Luca. “I couldn’t fall asleep when we moved here ,” he says with a gr...

Martin O’Neill, left, the Celtic manager in 2003 with Clark,  when he was the club’s kit manager.  Photograph: Maurice McDonald/PA Celtic footballer who was a member of the ‘Lisbon Lions’ team that won the European Cup in 1967 Obituary Brian Wilson Fri 27 Jun 2025 18.26 CEST John Clark, who has died aged 84, was a member of the Celtic team that won the European Cup in 1967, the first time the trophy was secured by a British club. Playing alongside the imperious centre-half Billy McNeill , Clark was the ultra-efficient sweeper at the heart of defence. Clark and McNeill always shared a room, and a snap taken on the morning after the triumph in Lisbon showed the two men, both from working-class backgrounds in Lanarkshire, sleeping contentedly with the greatest prize in world club football perched between their beds. It was an image that epitomised the character and camaraderie of the Celtic team, all of whom were drawn from within a 40-mile radius of the club’s stadium, mostly ...

Cover image courtesy of Lidl-Trek https://www.rouleur.it/blogs/the-rouleur-journal/my-ongoing-three-year-battle-with-cancer-by-lidl-trek-manager-luca-guercilena Lidl-Trek manager Luca Guercilena was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma in the autumn of 2021 aged 48, an aggressive but treatable type of chronic cancer. For Rouleur ’s In My Words , the Italian speaks candidly about his struggles of the past few years, revealing that there were times when he thought his time was up. He’s now back at races and living a relatively normal life, but Guercilena is conscious that cancer could tighten its grip on him once again at any moment. Photos: Getty Images Words: Luca Guercilena It was during my flight to the 2021 Tour de France when I first started to feel bad. I had back and belly pain, feelings that weren’t common, and during the first two weeks of the Tour I’d wake up in the night with pain everywhere . I went for a scan on the second rest day in Andorra, and I found out that there w...

Guercilena at the team launch in 2014  (Image credit: Getty Images) https://www.cyclingnews.com/features/from-nobody-to-somebody-how-luca-guercilena-convinced-trek-to-buy-a-pro-team-book-extract/ The Italian team manager tells his life story in an emotional and revealing book Book extract By Stephen Farrand published March 21, 2025 Luca Guercilena, the manager of the Lidl-Trek team, has written an autobiography that looks back at his extraordinary life as a young cyclist, coach, directeur sportif and now manager with one of the sports super teams. Guercilena dedicated his book to his family but also "to all those who helped me stay alive ." He has battled against an aggressive lymphoma since 2021, going through multiple cycles of chemotherapy but is again working full time as team manager of Lidl-Trek. The book was written with the help of Italian journalist Pier Augusto Stagi and is called Da zero a uno – 'From nobody to somebody'. It does not focus on Guercilena...

EMMA DA SILVA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES Faith Kipyegon grimaces as she reaches the finish line in Paris Kipyegon off the pace in Parisian anticlimax Kenyan’s attempt to become first woman to run a mile in under four minutes falls flat 27 Jun 2025 - The Guardian Sean Ingle - Stade Charléty Faith Kipyegon’s dream of following in Sir Roger Bannister’s long footsteps by becoming the first woman to shatter the four-minute barrier for the mile ended with her body soaked in lactic acid and defiance. And, crucially, with the stadium clock at Stade Charléty more than six seconds away from where she had hoped it would be. The 31-year-old Kenyan arrived in Paris stacked with the latest weapons in track and field’s technological arms race. But having reached the bell in 3min 1sec , just about on schedule, she found that physiology began to overpower technology. There was a consolation of sorts as she finished in 4:06.42 – 1.22" faster than her world record. The new time will not count as she wa...

Noa Essengue au côté d’Adam Silver, le patron de la NBA,  mercredi soir sur la scène du Barclays Center de Brooklyn. Réservé hors des parquets, l’ailier-fort cache une détermination sans faille et un vrai potentiel de joueur polyvalent en NBA. Deux qualités qui ont séduit les Chicago Bulls, qui l’ont choisi en 12e position dans la nuit de mercredi à jeudi. 27 Jun 2025 - L'Équipe MAXIME AUBIN NEW YORK (USA) – Assis au bord de l’estrade du Barclays Center à Brooklyn, costume noir sobre avec quelques perles cousues aux manches en guise de fantaisie, Noa Essengue place ses invités à sa table en imaginant le déroulé de la soirée. Quand Adam Silver, grand patron de la NBA, l’appellera sur scène, il commencera par un câlin «pas trop long» à sa mère, puis finira par un check répété plus tôt dans la journée avec son grand frère Mathis. Une sobriété qui caractérise bien ce jeune ailier-fort français de 18 ans, sélectionné quelques minutes plus tard en 12e position de la draft par les Chicago...