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In 2006 Italcementi launched a series of sports sponsorships to support the new TX Active® product. Three disciplines were chosen because of their link with love for nature, Italian and Mediterranean culture and tradition:
- nordic skiing with Marcialonga;
- cycling, with BICISCUOLA, the Dolomites Marathon and Granfondo Felice Gimondi, to involve schools and the Giro d’Italia, the most important professional cycling race in Italy;
- sailing with TX Active® Sailing Team.
Italcementi has promoted these activities to involve particularly young people together with their families. The BICISCUOLA project tackles exactly this objective: an educational initiative linked to the Giro d’Italia and promoted by La Gazzetta dello Sport, the most diffuse sports daily newspaper, with the support of the Italian Cycling Federation. It saw its fifth year in 2006, attended by 50,000 kids from over 2,000 elementary and middle school classes from Italian schools in areas neighboring the route of the race. Children aged 6 to 11 years and 12 to 14 years challenged each other in activities inspired to environment protection, with a focus on bicycles as a non-polluting means of transport and fun.
Each child was invited to talk about a personal experience from a cycling trip through a short written essay, picture or drawing. Every middle school class was invited to formulate ideas on how to improve the quality of their lives so threatened by polluting agents, guessing how, for instance,using environmentally friendly energy and materials can help reduce the smog in urban areas.
The winning class from each territory participated in and experienced the thrills of the part of the Giro d’Italia itself closest to their area. In six locations (Trento, Pisa, Cremona, Forlí, Brescia and Milan) the local winners had the opportunity to test their bicycle skills competing for special prizes to be won by the top three champions of each trial.
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| The Biciscuola Day promoted by Italcementi, Bergamo, Italy | “Let’s build clean air” was the responsible message of Italcementi to the 50,000 young people that took part to this event.
The testimonial for TX Active® at BICISCUOLA was Smogbuster®, “the terror of the smog-spitters, who loves our city”. Smogbuster® is a cheerful character who played with the children and helped them understand more about the environment, contextually leading them to discover how personal involvement, research and innovation can contribute to the fight against pollution. Smogbuster® was there at every stage of BICISCUOLA to stimulate the younger children to get active and contribute to the creation of a world with greater care for the environment.
Italcementi gave every participating class a gift pack containing 25 leaflets and a Smogbuster® poster, “instant win” lottery tickets and a TX Active® postcard which magically grows a small plant once watered. Finally, on www.smogbuster.it a whole area is dedicated to BICISCUOLA, where young web surfers can find posters, images, online games, logos and many other fun surprises.
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