In 1976, Paolo Sorbini, founder of Enervit, built something that did not yet exist in cycling: a permanent internal structure made up of doctors, nutritionists, biologists and technical specialists. He called it the Equipe Enervit. No external advisory board, no marketing instrument. A working team that works directly with athletes.
For decades, Prof. Enrico Arcelli was the face of this work. The sports scientist from the University of Milan shaped the Equipe from the early years until his death on June 30, 2015. Moser's hour record was prepared under his leadership in 1984 — Arcelli brought the sports science, Sassi the training, Ferrario the heart rate measurement, Dal Monte the aerodynamics. By the standards of the time, this was an unusually broad approach.
However, the real benchmark of the Equipe is less this one moment than the thirty years that followed. From 1973 to 2003, Enervit ran the Giroclinica: a mobile clinic at the Giro d’Italia that carried out more than 10,000 laboratory tests over three decades. A field study in the literal sense: not a controlled laboratory, but everyday Grand Tour life with real stresses, real failures, real data.
This tradition continues today. The Equipe is firmly integrated into the structures of UAE Team Emirates and Lidl-Trek and works directly with the teams' nutrition managers. The C2:1PRO line (maltodextrin-fructose in a ratio of 2:1) was not created at a desk. Formulas were first tested with professional riders, including Tadej Pogacar, before they went on sale.
In 2024, a randomized controlled study with 26 runners was published in the journal Nutrients. Result: 2:1 maltodextrin-fructose supplementation measurably reduced inflammatory markers — IL-6, CRP, cortisol. This is a solid single study, not a breakthrough. And here it pays to be honest: the Equipe's published research volume is manageable. Much of the work is applied field research with professional teams, valuable, but not the same as a broad-based clinical study program. The self-image as a “scientifically led” company is based more on fifty years of practical experience than on academic publication density.
What Equipe Enervit actually is: an unusually long-lived structure that took sports physiology seriously when it was not yet a matter of course. And which has consistently developed this approach further.