Leaving aside what the Giro d’Italia would have been without him and what the modesty of his opponents was, it remains that Pogacar offered us glimpses of immense value, not only sportingly, but, and I would like to say above all, for how the Champion interprets the role, letting the respect for those who come to see him and the deep and sensitive connection with those who put passion, aspirations and dreams into cycling overflow together with the sweat of the performance. Let him value for everyone and everything the fascinating gift of the water bottle to the child who runs alongside him on the Grappa.
But when could one ever have imagined that an athlete of that level, in pursuit of that result, subjected to that effort and concentration, also found the moment to grasp, share and reward that child’s heartwith everything that each of us can imagine was inside it, making it pump together with ours beyond all sweet imagination.
Yet that’s how it was: the best commercial you could think of for the promotion of cycling among young people, boys and girls, boys and girls, making them understand how “that world” is also theirs and for them, intrinsically relevant, an extended space to pedal between dreams, aspirations, ways of learning life.
For Pogacar, almost an offshoot of what he has been feeling for some years and feels he needs to be heard with his personal commitment to the spread of cycling in his native Slovenia, through school projects and personal financial support for youth training. A rarity for such a young Champion!
That gift of the water bottle, however, in addition to having moistened the eyes of many parents and grandparents, calls us to reflect on the how cycling can and must be offered to young people, beyond the methods we know, which are also not lacking in the Giro, see for example Biciscuola and the Anci Workshops, but they are still not enough. Serious things, together with other well-known ones, but which on the level of communication do not seem to really “pierce” the soul, the emotions and the imagination of boys and girls, whose perceptive “antenna” is light years different from those of so-called boomers, who are also the current ruling class.
For cycling lovers, it is legitimate to be pleased with the gesture of the water bottle given by Pogacar to the child, with a helmet on his head and an “antagonist” t-shirt, also an icon of true sportsmanship, but together with this, and precisely because of the illumination of that gesture, there must be a strong desire to relaunch research on communication and operational methods to guarantee this sport the future it deserves.
I propose one: at the start of the most popular racesin particular the stages of the Grand Tours, line up in front of the front rowthat of the best runners, a similar line of boys and girls riding their little bikesi, with the t-shirts of their clubs or of the champions to emulate or of those who are at the top of the various rankings, so that they can be taken up by the media and significantly witnessed to a cycling that was born from the “little ones” and which every day “waters” its roots without separation along the path of its growth.
It’s not an extraordinary thing, nor is it complicated to do. Perhaps seemingly trivial, but between doing it and not doing it, the difference could be enormous.
PS We cannot write about Pogacar without also mentioning his exquisite availability towards all those involved in the organization of the race, including, dear to me, the motorcyclists in charge of safety.
