Il world it's already part of the past: Fausto Scotti prefers to look to the future, but there is one thing he would like to underline in the final report.
«Talking about Italy needing to be rebuilt as I have read in some newspapers is wrong – he says – it means not having followed the season, not realizing that We have one of the youngest and most promising national teams on the international scene. Not having noticed that our very strong juniors were not at the World Championships. Of course, if we look at the elite competition in Ostend, the fact that all of ours ended up dubbed is not pleasant. But those two "astronauts" They're reshaping the entire world of cyclocross. They're something that goes beyond the general level of the movement. The others, the Belgian and Dutch champions, also suffer very heavy delays».
It's also true, however, that our elite are no longer able to compete with other nations like France or Switzerland...
If we look at the hypothetical team ranking, we would have been fifth, always considering that Belgium and Holland are a world apart for the simple reason that cyclocross is professional there., capable of guaranteeing you salaries of 300 thousand euros a year and wages of 2.000 euros per game and I'm certainly not talking about VdP or Van Aert... Our people have to decide what to doIf you compete in cyclocross and you're thinking about mountain biking, aiming for a possible Olympic or national team call-up, with the money that's going around there, you don't have the right prospects. This isn't to say I'm against multidisciplinarity, but I see it more as a commonality between cyclocross and road.
Francesca Baroni, U23 Italian champion and fifth overall in Ostend Sara Casasola is another of the fastest growing Italian U23s The Giro d'Italia cyclocross also highlighted Gaia Realini
Francesca Baroni, U23 Italian champion and fifth overall in Ostend Sara Casasola, another U23 to watch Gaia Realini, U23 on the rise
So Scotti would approve of a pairing with road teams, less so with off-road teams?
Mind you, The mountain bike gives you flexibility and balance, but it can never guarantee you the engine that gives you the road, working at a diluted pace and intensity for hours. Doing an hour and a half on the road and the same amount of time on a mountain bike is not the same, In the long run, mountain biking drains youIt's useful, but in my opinion it's not complementary to cyclocross. Fontana e Bertolini (in the opening photo, ed.), to name two, they had to to sacrifice part of their preparation for the World Cup to the ambitions in MTBAnd in Ostend they were not in top form, as they could have been.
For Filippo Fontana, are cross-country and mountain biking in conflict? Samuele Leone is a second year U23, as a junior in 2019 he was a national champion Marco Pavan is 20 years old, he runs in theArea ZeroHe won the Osoppo stage of the Giro d'Italia Cyclocross
For Filippo Fontana, are cross-country and mountain biking in conflict? Leone, 2nd year U23, won the Italian championship as a junior in 2019 Pavan is 20 years old, he runs in theArea ZeroHe won the Osoppo stage of the Gic
But then the road takes away the best talents, as happened with De Pretto…
The fact is that the Italian teams they don't look at cyclocross, except as a talent poolAnd when you get there, they tell you that the road rules and that cyclocross carries the risk of injury, so we lose riders. I don't want to discuss the teams' choices, specifically the Work ServiceThey have their reasons, but maybe There are guys who could achieve a lot in cyclocross and who wouldn't have such good careers on the road and winners. Abroad, they don't think that way...
Is there a risk of losing more talent this way?
It depends. Let's take the example of Lorenzo Masciarelli: there is a project in progress with De Clercq. He will race a lot on the road, but cyclocross will remain his goal. and this will allow him to grow. For Olive, the Italian champion in his category who practices many cycling disciplines, you can do the same thing. It's easier with girls, there multidisciplinarity is acquired. Brawls who stood out on the road at the Giro d'Italia two years ago, has never stopped investing in our business.
So what is needed to give a boost to Italian cyclocross?
Easy, a professional team, structured like the Belgian and Dutch onesI, which brings together the best young talents and helps them grow. However, there is one aspect I would like to emphasize: At youth level we're not in such a bad positionAnd even the World Championships, held on an atypical course that wasn't all that exciting, proved it. We have many talented young people, one can be optimistic, but one must preserve the movement and let them grow without taking them to other shores.
What will Scotti do now, once the season is over?
All the financial statements need to be sorted out, prepare calendars and activities for next year, follow the school and Armed Forces projects, travel to follow the kids between road and mountain biking. My work is not finished, it has just begun...
