TOKYO – It wouldn’t be fair to say that tomorrow Filippo Ganna plus three other Azzurri will play for gold in the pursuit on a cycling track. But what we saw at the Izu velodrome, rolling our eyes, tells of a champion who today in the last kilometer pulled his teammates who were at a disadvantage against the New Zealanders, then beaten by just 90 cents, and took them flying towards the world record, as well as in the final. At 11.06 Italian time tomorrow, Wednesday, our riders will have an absolute standard of comparison, the most complicated possible: Denmark world champion. Planetary record against rainbow jerseys. It will be nice to see, also because we have the lord of the ring.
But the other three are also excellent cyclists. These are Simone Consonni, Francesco Lamon and Jonathan Milan, people who have never abandoned the track which is also a discipline now on the sidelines in Italy, despite having given gold medals and rainbow jerseys when sprinters like Maspes and Gaiardoni were more popular of footballers. And we never stopped winning, especially in fast trials: Elia Viviani was gold medal at Rio 2016 in the Omnium, where he will try to repeat himself on Thursday. Five years ago in Brazil our quartet recovered in extremis had finished sixth, and fourth had placed in London in 2012.
Therefore, the medal of tomorrow is already sparkling as in the Olympic pursuit it had not entered since the 1960s. The blue Rachele Barbieri, Letizia Paternoster, Elisa Balsamo and Vittoria Guazzini finished sixth in a race dominated as expected by Germany. They have been good, they are very young, they are growing up and they couldn’t do more. But that’s just the beginning. In Paris 2024 they could already be on the podium.
Our men’s quartet pulverized time and shattered the clock: 4 kilometers in apnea in 4’42 “307, average speed of a scooter: 64.765 kilometers per hour, but pushing with our legs.” We don’t limit ourselves, we’re taking off “says Marco Villa, the coach.” It was right that Filippo ran there time trial on the road even if it was not a path for him, but he is the world champion and he could not miss it. But he couldn’t miss it even here on the track, where we have been working together for eight years to get to this beautiful day. The characteristics in our boys do not allow us to start strong, so we are always forced to play everything in the final. It will be the same this time “.
Those who follow the Azzurri closely know that the world record had already dropped a couple of times in training, but the race is another matter, and even more so on this very fast track. It will therefore be a space final, because Denmark in their challenge in battery against Great Britain had reached the third kilometer ahead of about a second over the Azzurri, then the incredible happened: the Danish Madsen hit the British Tanfield who had detached from his quartet: tumble and race over. The judges took a long time to indicate Denmark as the winner and finalist for gold: having reached Great Britain, albeit with a crash, it was declared first (the dry result was enough, the times did not count: those become decisive only to establish the finalist teams for the bronze, i.e. Australia versus New Zealand). In short, between tomorrow the day after tomorrow, between the flying quartet and the standard-bearer Viviani, we have sweet dreams even if no one will sleep.
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