Jakub Mareczko

Jakub Mareczko
	Mareczko in 2015.
Personal information
Full name	Jakub Mareczko
Born	30 April 1994 (age 27); Jarosław, Poland
Height	1.69 m (5 ft 7 in)
Weight	68 kg (150 lb)
Team information
Current team	Vini Zabù–Brado–KTM
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	Sprinter
Amateur team
2013–2014	Viris Maserati
Professional teams
2015–2018	Southeast Pro Cycling
2019–2020	CCC Team
2021–	Vini Zabù–Brado–KTM

Jakub Mareczko (born 30 April 1994) is an Italian road cyclist of Polish origin,^[2] who currently rides for UCI ProTeam Vini Zabù–Brado–KTM.^[3] A sprinter, Mareczko is seen by the Italian national cycling coach Davide Cassani as one of the best young hopes for Italian cycling.^[4]

Biography[]

Mareczko was born in Poland on 30 April 1994; he moved with his mother to Brescia, Italy, when he was five years old.^[5]

It was announced that Mareczko had signed his first professional contract with the then Neri Sottoli in July 2014.^[6] Racing as an amateur cyclist in the 2013 and 2014 seasons, he won 16 races and came to the attention of Davide Cassani.^[7] He was the most successful under-23 rider in Italy in 2014.^[8] Mareczko was seen as one of the major hopes for Southeast Pro Cycling, which had been in significant trouble on account of repeated doping cases; the team also signed the veteran sprinter Alessandro Petacchi with the hope that he would be able to help Mareczko to develop as a cyclist (in particular to get stronger on the climbs), as well as potentially leading him out in the sprints.^[8]^[9]

Mareczko's first wins as a professional cyclist came in the 2015 Vuelta al Táchira (a 2.2 race where many of the riders are amateurs), where he won stages 3 and 4.^[5]^[10] He was then selected to lead the Italian national team in the sprint stages at the 2015 Tour de San Luis, where he twice finished in the top ten, including a third place on the final stage behind Mark Cavendish and Fernando Gaviria. He started both the 2015 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and the 2015 Kuurne–Brussels–Kuurne but finished neither. He finished third on the second stage of the 2015 Tour de Langkawi, then finished second on the fourth and sixth stages. Mareczko's cobbled classics season then continued with his participation in the Dwars door Vlaanderen, the E3 Harelbeke, the Gent–Wevelgem, the Three Days of De Panne and the Scheldeprijs, although he finished none of these races.^[10]

Mareczko won two stage at the 2015 Vuelta a Venezuela, a 2.2-ranked race. His first professional-level victory came at the end of the 2015 road racing season, when he won the sixth stage of the 2.HC-ranked .^[11] A few days before this victory, Southeast announced that his contract had been renewed for the following two seasons.^[12] It was followed by more victories in China: at the 2.1-ranked Tour of Taihu Lake, Mareczko won all seven of the nine stages to end in bunch sprints. He also won the general classification, the points classification and the young rider classification in the race.^[13]

He was named in the start list for the 2016 Giro d'Italia,^[14] but abandoned the race on Stage 5.^[15] In October 2020, he was named in the startlist for the 2020 Vuelta a España.^[16]

In November 2020, Mareczko signed a two-year contract with the Vini Zabù–Brado–KTM team, from the 2021 season.^[17]