Jakub Mareczko steps down from World Tour and joins Team Corratec - Selle Italia: "It feels like coming home"

Jakub Mareczko was in the past a symbol of the Italian Pro Continental peloton, an unique sprinter who is a relative anomaly in the peloton. After a year at World Tour level he steps down once again and joins Team Corratec - Selle Italia to be a leader once again.

“I am very happy that Jakub has decided to race with us,” team manager Serge Parsani said in a press release. “He is a guy I know very well, having been his sports director at Southeast in 2015. I remember that year he was able to showcase his excellent pure sprinter talent, giving us great satisfaction. I think at 29 years old, he still has the opportunity to achieve good results, remaining one of the few pure sprinters in circulation”.

Mareczko is a rather unusual case in the pro peloton, a high quality sprinter but one who never adapted to the World Tour racing - mostly due to his lack of climbing capacity. However, aware of that, he has built an incredibly successful career out of calendar choices, as for large years he remained in the Pro Continental (now ProTeam) scene and often raced in the Asian calendar. As a result he holds 48 wins at UCI pro level.

In 2022 Mareczko signed with Alpecin-Deceuninck, and raced this year as well with the Belgian outfit - combining racing with the elite and development teams, often in lower category races. He's taken five wins in this season, two of them at the 2022 and 2023 ZLM Tour where he outsprinted Olav Kooij in both. A quality sprinter, he had a stint at the highest level once again, but will step down in order to find sole leadership with the Italian team.

Alongside the likes of Kristian Sbaragli, Niccolò Bonifazio (two more sprinters who will significantly boost the team's level) and Andrii Ponomar, the Italian team has reinforced itself well into the 2024 season. Having raced the Giro d'Italia this year, it has chances of doing the same in 2024 and Mareczko could find himself still able to race against the very best.

“I am very happy to become part of Team corratec – Selle Italia," Mareczko said. “For me, it feels like coming home. I already know some of the guys here, and I just want to sincerely thank the entire team for the trust they have placed in me. I promise to give my best to repay the trust”.