It happens every time someone we didn't vote for is in charge. It's a constant refrain in politics. First with Craxi, Andreotti, Ciampi, Berlusconi, Prodi, Monti, Renzi, Conte, Draghi, and now Meloni: the standard-bearers of every possible political faction. People don't go to vote and then complainTaxes go up or down. Research funding disappears. Hospitals lose parts. Fuel prices go up. Retirement is no longer possible. the whole range of (justified) dissatisfactionsBut if that day you preferred to go to the beach, why are you complaining?
It also happens in cycling, whether it's Omini, Carlesso, Ceruti, Di Rocco and now, for the second time, Dagnoni. Things aren't going well, those in charge obviously claim the opposite and the people at the base are cultivating various frustrationsHere, if nothing else, the complaint is justified by the fact that one can't actually vote. The delegates do it, but who checks what they write in the secret ballot box?
On the eve of the last election, Martinello's people had counted the numbers and were much more than optimistic: the next day they lived a resounding debacleWhat had changed during the night? Companies don't vote, individuals don't vote, as would be right.And in the end you find yourself faced with the problems and demands of those who probably would have voted differently and can't do anything about it.
An outdated model
The rules of cycling are 50 years old and they don't change. What he said yesterday Enrico Mantovanelli on juniors it is sacrosanctNo one governs the category – in Italy or around the world. In the name of European law, anyone who has just turned 18 or has consenting parents can do as they please. Many complain, but meanwhile, the last time it came to a decision, they voted for the same people, who evidently work well for some. Meanwhile, what's happening to Italian cycling? It is shrinking, losing companies and is increasingly limited to a few regions, which in turn have declining numbers.
The South has disappeared. How long will it be before we can tell the stories of Fina, Galati, Nibali, Visconti, the two Carusos, Tiralongo, Napolitano, Di Grande, and Palumbo again? What is the FCI doing to relaunch cycling in the South?
While we hold on tight to Damiano Caruso and Fiorelli, remember Sciortino's experience, who preferred university to the small amount of money he would have received in Lombardy. Perhaps he didn't have the right reasons. Or perhaps It's no longer the time of kamikaze riders who leave home at 16 to chase fortune in a sport that no longer offers certainties..
Regular activities are not possible at the moment in the regions below TuscanyThe teams ready to welcome you to the North are increasingly fewer and less wealthy. And if you haven't made it big at 22, you have to go back home – failed – with nothing in your hands. By choosing to live differently, at 22 you graduate and maybe even find a job.
The paranza of the children
A Facebook user wrote yesterday: "Prosecutors, you're ruining cycling!" True or false? If no one writes a rule that limits the concentration of agents for the same agency and of athletes for a single agent, there is little to point fingers at.
Agents work on percentages, It's normal that they started hunting for women and children.At first someone was acting precious, then he given the level of salaries and with great ease he put the preconceptions back in his pocket. There are no qualms about the latter, it has always happened, only now the minimum age has been lowered.
The day after Cunego's victory at the Junior World Championships in Verona, back on October 10, 1999, we drove to Cerro Veronese to interview the newly crowned champion at his home. That morning at 8:30, Alex Carera was already in the kitchen, having coffee with Damiano and his mother. We're talking 26 years ago, nothing new.
What was new in the meantime was CovidWe are not psychologists enough to explain it, but subjecting children who were children and pre-adolescents to strong pressure during the lockdown and in the two years that followed means to do serious damage without realizing it.
They are treated as adults before their timeThey often drop out of school or choose an online one. They travel with the promise of large sums of money and perhaps have families behind them whose lives that money would change. Everything about cycling, everything on their shoulders: whatever the cost. If they succeed, applause. If they return home, defeated and failed after at least six years of doing nothing but pedaling, who will take care of them?
The role of the Federation
La Federation it is stuck in outdated patterns. If you want your child to become a rider, you sign him up to a club, you don't go to the local FCI office.Have you ever seen a federal poster on the road or in a school encouraging children to take up cycling? Access to the sport is through private individuals, and where there are no private individuals, cycling disappears.
Does it still make sense to continue to provide regional teams for the Italian junior championships (the 2025 podium will open, with Carosi first over Pezzo Rosola and Pascarella – image photors.it) and for the Giro della Lunigiana? In the amateurs they have been eliminated for years and if they make sense among the juniors it is precisely for support the activity in regions where there are no teamsSicily is doing well with Alessandro Mansueto, who is struggling to make ends meet, but maybe it would make more sense change the approach and give continuity to the action.
The necessary breakthrough
Why not predict? a federal guesthouse, like theUCI World Cycling Center of Aigle, where young people from the South could stay for defined periods, engaging in continuous activities, avoiding the cost of travel and hotels? Like the British and Australians, who set up bases in Tuscany and Lombardy: for a Sicilian or a Sardinian, a Calabrian or a Pugliese – given the ticket prices – cycling in Italy is like doing it in France or Belgium.
Perhaps clubs like Mantovanelli's would find it interesting to participate in this type of spending, because it would be a way to screen new athletes, seeing the value of contributions currently paid without feedback. A single, comprehensive project, involving recruitment phases throughout Italy.
Wouldn't it be interesting, for example, that in the velodrome of Palermo (currently open to football and not to cycling), the one in Monteroni, in Lanciano or in Marcianise twice a year, evaluation tests were carried out on the interested children and that, based on the values found, they were brought to this development center in the North?
The Federation should be promoting itself, but sometimes it seems like it's just counting medals. Medals come because the federal coaches are good, but also because Companies invest in athletes and for that they barely get a pat on the back. It's a bit like continuing to sow the same land with the same crop: farmers know this well, after a while the soil will become dry and the harvest will be unsatisfactoryContinuing on the same path as always, this is precisely the risk.
Someone will say: the usual conversations that happen in winter, then the season starts and we don't talk about it anymore. It's true, winter is the best time to think and plan; the season is the observation phase when critical issues surface. Dear members, what would you vote for if you were given the chance tomorrow?
