Swatt Club chooses Livigno for high-altitude training: a new synergy between professionals and amateurs
It all began a year ago with a conversation between Carlo Beretta, team manager of Swatt Club, and Luca Moretti, president of Livigno Next. They come from the same world, alpine skiing: both competed at a high level and represented the national team. It therefore did not take long for them to agree on the possibility of the Swatt Club Continental cycling team spending two weeks training in Livigno, with a high-altitude training camp designed to fine-tune their preparation ahead of the final two months of racing.
The riders in Livigno were the Danes Mads Andersen, Kasper Andersen, Matias Malberg and Oliver Knudsen, together with Italians Nicolò Pettiti, Lorenzo Galimberti, Giacomo Garavaglia, Lorenzo Ginestra and Francesco Carollo.
“It was a fantastic training period. We completed a wide variety of sessions and distances, comparing our performances with one another and also carrying out specific training work. The weather conditions were also extremely favourable, allowing us to train intensively and to a very high standard,” said Carlo Beretta, who this year took a major step forward by setting up a Continental team.
The training camp for the professional squad also coincided with the camp of the Swatt Club amateur team.
A genuine innovation in the world of cycling. “Swatt first began as an amateur movement, and then three years ago we entered the competitive scene with the Elite team, initially in the Club category. After last year’s triumph with Filippo Conca at the Italian Championships, we have now stepped up to the Continental level. The amateur movement continues to grow, and sharing some training sessions with the professionals was an incredible experiment. The experience in Livigno was certainly something truly original,” Beretta added.
An initiative that further strengthens the sense of belonging to the Swatt community and, more broadly, to the world of cycling — a positive concept that Livigno has always believed in. Swatt is a forward-thinking cycling movement that has brought many young people closer to the sport, with an amateur team that now counts nearly 1,500 members.
It represents a real revolution in amateur cycling, a positive shake-up for a sport that needs generational renewal. This is one of Swatt’s key strengths: encouraging people to embrace competition, supporting them along the way, and bringing both younger and older generations closer to cycling.
And so, the days in Livigno were packed with training, from the climbs around Livigno and the Engadin to the uphill saddle test on Passo Eira, the ascent of the Stelvio Pass, and rides through the tunnels alongside the lake. These were just some of the routes tackled by the teams, sometimes separately and sometimes together.