It seems like a century has passed, it was just the dawn of 2017 when at the Hotel Fiordaliso in Terracina, a historic location for retreats when Spain was not yet so sought after, we met four neo-professionals from the newly formed UAE Team Emirates. Ganna, Consonni, Troìa and Ravasi had landed at the court of Saronni and Gianetti from Team Colpack which until the previous year had been the Lampre nursery with which Merida shared its bikes. Four very different guys who in the under 23s had earned the chance of the WorldTour.
Summerwho arrived at Colpack from Viris, had participated in the Rio Olympics, had won the first world pursuit championship, a long series of time trials and the Paris-Roubaix Espoirs 2016. Consonni he was the reigning Italian champion and, since he was the fast one and held his own uphill, he had a lot of classics (the silver at the 2015 world championships in Richmond, however, still rankled on his skin). Ravasi he was the climber, second in the 2016 Tour de l’Avenir behind Gaudu and winner of stages in the Giro delle Valli Cuneesi and Valle d’Aosta. In the end Troythe pacemaker and team man, who helped Ganna achieve success in the 2016 U23 Roubaix.
Four different stories
Seven years later, Ganna and Consonni are still in the group, Ravasi and Troìa no longer. It’s not a given to have a career and the less structured you are, the more difficult it becomes. This journey, made in the company of Rossella Di Leo who made them grow in Team Colpack, can be a useful read for anyone who is about to become a professional without having the necessary cartridges in your pockets.
«For Ganna and Consonni – reflects Rossella – there are no problems, they are still there and are proving what they are worth. Troìa stopped by because he was ready to do his job and it seems to me that in the years in which he had the contract he also demonstrated that he worked well. Then Pippo and Simone changed teams, perhaps if they had stayed, “Olly” could have continued to do for them the work he had always done at Colpack. Then he happily married, had a baby and now has another. He has chosen another path and is doing it very well with his father’s work.”
All good, but he himself was left without a team at 28, after having worked well and for a long time…
When I see runners for the first time, I always say that It’s much harder to stop running than it is to start. You can be 25, you can be 30, but if you haven’t prepared a plan B, it’s the hardest thing in the world. I also experienced it with Felice Gimondi, who finished his career, but he wasn’t ready yet. In fact, in the first year he couldn’t even understand what he had to do. It’s not a question of age. Unless you do like Davide Martinelli and prepare a plan B a year before, always remaining in the world of cycling.
Ravasi was very unlucky, he had physical problems and left the scene in silence…
Edward has always been a bit frail, but he had finished second in the Tour de l’Avenir. He had proven something, so he was ready too. But it’s true that he always had problems even when he was at Colpack, luck was not on his side.
All four at the UAE: couldn’t it be that Ravasi himself would have needed a smaller team, given his fragility?
When I talk about these things, I think of Ciccone. When he was in his third year as an amateur and perhaps he was thinking of doing as with Consonni who did four, Giulio said he would like to pass. That his father was a worker, the train was passing and he didn’t feel like letting it go. When it came to Ravasi, the train that passed was an Italo, a Freccia Rossa and how can you not catch it?
Was there nothing else?
That was there and that took, there weren’t so many teams. Consonni would also have been ready to move on after his third year as an U23, but there were no teams and we waited for him to make the fourth. Ravasi took his chance, it’s not a question of intelligence, it’s above all a question of choice. You would do it too, right? Wouldn’t you have chosen the most important team?
Over the years, Consonni has been Viviani’s sidekick and now Milan’s: he found his role and stopped there. Could you aspire to more?
Even with us at Colpack he has always been versatile, in the sense that he won but he was always available to everyone. He has always been a team man, since he was little. He won, but he was happy to let others win: a skill he has always had. If you have a stronger one in front of you, like Viviani on the track for example, you also have to be intelligent. And I’m also sure that behind Simone there are guys waiting for him to give up to take his place. On the track you can last many years, but it’s a big sacrifice.
Which, however, Consonni does very willingly…
Many times I don’t understand it, because it’s really a big commitment. The track is their home, understand? Even when they were amateurs, they left, spent hours and hours on the track and when they returned they told you they ate a piadina and continued walking. Today with all the nutritionists there are, someone would have a stroke.
Let’s talk about Ganna. Why wasn’t someone who won the Roubaix as an U23 and has long distance skills like him immediately put at the center of a project on the classics?
I could also agree with this, because Pippo is very strong. But at Ineos perhaps they haven’t always valued it for what it’s worth. He is now a mature athlete, who will have made his choices, just as Simone made his. Pippo is also a modest boy, he trusts the people who are managing him so much and therefore he doesn’t sit there thinking that he could have done differently. Both he and Consonni have always been like this and therefore they live well.
When you entrusted them to the UAE, did you expect what happened or did you think something different?
They always gave their best, so what came was fine. The fact that they didn’t build a team around him for the classics is also part of Pippo’s choices. You’re an adult and they pay you, right? In the end you have to do what they ask of you. Consonni says it many times: I have to work, but they pay me to do that, so I do that. In my opinion they are also considered positively in their respective teams for this aspect. Because they don’t complain and stay in their place.
Maybe this correctness can sometimes be a little restrictive for the fans?
If you have someone like Evenepoel, who hustles and talks from morning to night, that’s one thing. But here we are not talking about Remco, but about first of all kids from a different generation. Now there are them, there is Pogacar. In my opinion instead Pippo and Simo are boys with a different humility.
Does it still happen when professionals pass by?
We talk or see each other for occasions, such as parties or races, but we are not people who bother us. When Ganna broke the Hour record, we went to see it. There are times like fan club parties or when they have a baby. I feel more with Ganna’s mother than with Pippo himself. But once we were in Livigno, he was there too and for two or three evenings we ate together.
Is this also the case with Ravasi and Troìa?
With Troìa yes, because she has always been part of the group and we happen to find ourselves. Ravasi, on the other hand, has always been a little more isolated, but I can say that after that generation things have changed. The relationships with Masnada, Ciccone and Consonni remained. If they do something nice and you text them, they text you back. But from then on, the relationship changed. We now keep runners for a maximum of two years, which is too shortso when they leave, we rarely have contact. Consonni’s four years were four years of life.
Wasn’t there the rush like now?
To say, on Christmas evening we went to my daughter’s house and Celestino was also therewho left Andora and returned here. Between amateurs and professionals, Mirko has been with us for eight years. He’s now one of the family.
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