When Matteo Trentin won the Giro del Veneto (opening photo) and received a hug from Ulissi, sixth at the finish, the spontaneous thought was: strong, these… old guys from 1989. On the same day, Elia Viviani won the elimination world championship, also from the same year. Like Puccio, Nizzolo and a few others. Compared to those from 1990 who have stopped for a while (with the exception of Felline, Sbaragli and Colbrelli, who has just retired due to well-known health problems), the year would appear to be blessed by a favorable fateIs there a reason?
Different approaches
The feeling is that the kids of 1989 lived a youth activity proportionate to their age, then they moved on and had time to adapt to professionalism and have their say. Those of 1990, in comparison, lived the same way between juniors and under 23s, but then they were thrown in with the gas open. They immediately achieved significant results. Then, lacking the foundation to support them, they stopped.
With Diego Ulissi, who is currently in Tuscany to enjoy the home air, let's think about this very thing, because we want to understand why it is so difficult to find young Italians with the desire and the legs to break throughUlissi has been a professional since 2010. He has won the Junior World Championship twice and 46 races in the top category, including 8 stages of the Giro. Today, at 33 years old, he is one of the key men at UAE Team Emirates, so much so that he renewed his contract until 2024.
Have you ever thought about certain things?
There's little time to really think (laughs, ed.). It's become a sport in which you have to keep up with the times above allYoung riders people are immediately competitive, a sign that their preparation is different from ours at the same age. There is no longer that category leap for which they told us to start from scratchFor example, in my first year as a pro, I really raced very slowly.
Few races?
Few, and of the right level. You could see how Coppi and Bartali were doing, and then, if necessary, they'd send you to the Tour of Switzerland. Before racing a major Giro, they wanted to be sure you could do it, never once did they throw you in just to see how it went. There were a series of passes, while those who pass now are ready to make the big races, as if they had done the same things in the youth categories too. We, born in 1989, have had a gradual growth and, each with his own role, we are still here.Some who achieved immediate results have already retired.
You won two junior world championships, today you would have gone straight to the pros.
Everyone thought I lived like a pro and that's how I trained, but that wasn't true. As a junior you are still in the growth phase and I had evidently reached maturity before., but it's not like I did anything out of the ordinary. There were also other riders who were going strongWhen I won my second world championship, we made it to the top three steps of the podium.
Have you ever thought about jumping ahead?
My sophomore year, I started late. I got pneumonia, and it seems that's where my carditis problems in the following years started. The following year, I was doing poorly in school, and My parents, who were pushing me to graduate, forced me to end the season a month early.Then I went to the amateurs and I had a huge effort, because I had already signed and they were holding me backWhen I moved on, I won straight away, but I still felt like I was behind and started to grow steadily.
Do you think if you had been pushed straight away to win, you would have been up to it?
I don't know. Today I see that it's natural to pass and excel. The preparations are top notch as is the nutrition: you see young people who pass by and are already competitive. Ayuso he made the podium at the Vuelta at the age of 20. They are also precocious in their mentalityI lived through the years of Petacchi, Cunego, Bettini, and Scarponi, and even in training I was afraid to even walk past champions I used to watch on television. Now it's different, today you have to move, but I wouldn't change anything about my pathI could have gone more aggressively and I probably would have been competitive, but I certainly would have lasted less. It's not like anything is being invented. If I make it and I'm a winner at 21 or 22, how long can I last?
Pogacar also spoke about durability over time…
People watch Tadej and thinks it's good for everyone. There are few who make it right away, others pass quickly, but they would need more time to spread their growth better.If you're strong in your first year, they say they're pushing you too hard when you're young. If you're not strong, then the work between the juniors and U23s isn't done well. That's the problem with Italian cycling.
There's also talk of the lack of space in certain teams...
As things stand now, to get space you have to go really fast and then you emergeOtherwise, there are so many good riders that you have to pull. I claim my school every day, I would do the whole course againLampre allowed me to grow without pressure. If I had a bad run, no one was on my side.
To stand out, do you just need to be fast or also mean?
Well, this is a point. I have noticed in recent years in UAE, in the various retreats where it happened to have young people on trial, who What's missing in Italians is nastiness. You've touched on an interesting point.If in the morning we say we'll do five and a half hours at a certain pace, foreigners say nothing, ours complain because that day they should do less. Being bad doesn't mean being a show-off, but when necessary, you have to show off your attributes.Otherwise, you won't even win the races. They tell us we're old and to make room for the young, but where are the ones who should take it?
