2008 World Championships, Official Race Poster – Winner, Alessandro Ballan

2008 UCI Road  World Championships – Varese, Italy

Campionati del Mondo di Ciclismo su Strada, 22-28 settembre, 2008

Antonio Tamburro turns the movement of a bicycle race into a burst of color and line. Riders emerge from a lively tangle of sweeping marks, their wheels and bodies seeming to overlap as the group surges forward. Beneath them, broad strokes of blue, red, black, yellow, and green carry the colors of the world champion’s jersey down the page. The artwork has room to breathe against the poster’s white background, while “VARESE 2008” and the event slogan Passione da vivere—“a passion to be lived”—give the design its Italian voice.

The championships produced six world champions. In the elite men’s road race, Alessandro Ballan attacked late to win on home roads, with fellow Italian Damiano Cunego second and Denmark’s Matti Breschel third. Nicole Cooke won the elite women’s road race ahead of Marianne Vos and Judith Arndt, adding the rainbow jersey to the Olympic road race gold she had won the previous month. Colombia’s Fabio Duarte took the under-23 men’s road title ahead of Simone Ponzi and John Degenkolb. In the individual time trials, Germany’s Bert Grabsch won the elite men’s title ahead of Svein Tuft and David Zabriskie; American Amber Neben won the elite women’s title ahead of Christiane Soeder and Judith Arndt; and Italy’s Adriano Malori won the under-23 men’s title ahead of Patrick Gretsch and Cameron Meyer.

This poster has been archivally and professionally linen-backed.

Virtually all original vintage posters of this era were viewed as temporary advertising and were printed on very thin paper. While expensive, linen backing is a conservation method used to mount, stabilize, preserve, and protect vintage posters, allowing them to be displayed or framed without compromising their value.