Hearing Giovanni Aleotti who in the aftermath of the victory against Slovenia he gave part of the credit to Paolo Artuso, his new trainer, made us want to call him. The season gallops towards the national championships and towards the Tour, in which Bora-Hansgrohe will also change its look and name. Artuso is expected from the call on Tuesday in which the German team will make the planning for the second part of the season. And this is how we learn that Aleotti is already part of the long list for the Vuelta: The final choice depends on how things go at the Tour de France.
Good morning Paolo, why did you start working with Aleotti?
In Bora there is always a mini camp in October in Solden, where you mix a bit of team building with some extra cycling activities. In the midst of all this, some performance meetings fit in and that’s when I started talking to him. And so we made the transition from Sylwester Szmyd who trained him before. Within a group like ours, every now and then we make some tactical trips. Maybe when someone has been with the same coach for three-four years, we look for new stimuli. More on a mental level than a methodological one. In Bora there is a sharing of everything, including training.
Do you all work the same way?
Not in detail, though the training skeleton is the same for everyone. Then individual changes are made within the same scheme. There is total sharing, consequently everyone is aware of everything and I think that in terms of performance it is a strong point of the team.
What changes were necessary for Giovanni?
More than changes, we reflected on whether he had problems last year. During the winter he had not been constant due to various health problems, so we decided to give a very light load progression. If you press the accelerator a little harder, the immune defenses are lowered and the athlete is more likely to get sick. If you enter this vortex, it also becomes difficult to be consistent in your performance. So we started more calmly, with gods lower workloads in November and December, then opening up the throttle a bit in January. Plus, we tried to avoid the cold 100 percent.
Is Giovanni more frail than other athletes?
In my opinion no. But when you have an athlete whose contract is expiring, who did well the previous year but not as expected, you try to be hyper cautious. We try to make a good calendar of races and a good altitude plan, like the one we did. So far Aleotti has done two altitude boulders, one in February and one in April, therefore an absolutely traditional approach to the Giro d’Italia. Then we paid attention to a few things, in more detail.
For example?
This year he did the Valenciana, from which he had to go straight to high ground. Just that we let him sleep for two nights at the bottom and then we went up: after the race, we didn’t want to stress the immune system. These small measures, combined with the fact that Giovanni is a war machine in terms of professionalism, meant that things worked.
Have you got an idea of what Aleotti might be worth from a career perspective?
He’s still young, he hasn’t reached his peak yet. It has a very high oxygen consumption, so it means that the engine is there. In terms of durability, even after 8 hours of training, it is still performing. He showed a good recovery over the course of the stage races. That’s kind of part of his DNA, but also at the preparation level we tried to make a broader base.
How?
We have worked in a more polarized manner for 7-8 weeks, and then subsequently began to introduce the threshold. We started in December. First do a purely aerobic basis, with some stimulation of oxygen consumption. Make the base by working hard on the famous Z2, to slightly increase mitochondrial density, but at the same time you are going to give some VO2 stimulation even in winter, but over very short durations. So you increase mitochondrial efficiency a little, i.e. practically respiration. Having made this great base, thanks to which you must last 20-30 minutes at the threshold, also go and change the training. You move on to threshold and medium threshold work, but to do that you need that large base.
Was this the first time Giovanni worked like this?
No, he always did it with Szmyd, because “Silvestro” is good: he knows what he’s doing. The only thing is that last year they were both unlucky with a lack of consistency due to health problems. They were always chasing. Sometimes it goes well and you manage to catch up with the group in front, but sometimes you still get sick. We should be able to stop and start again as if it were December, but this is not always possible. And then he also caught Covid, there was little that could be done.
Among the big steps forward, Aleotti also spoke about confidence in work.
The head goes behind the body. We talk practically every day, with a message or a call. I try to give him gods daily feedback on what he has done and based on this we adjust the following days. So I think that even on a mental level he feels followed and this brings trust.
How did you get him to train between the Giro and Slovenia?
There were 14 days. He arrived home from the Giro I made him rest for 4 days, where if he wanted he was free to take a trip for an hour. Then we have worked on doubles and not on triplets, because after the Giro d’Italia you certainly did enough hours. I gave him a fat-max stimulus (useful exercise for optimizing fat consumption, ed.), a very small VO2 stimulus. So he recovered and then I made him do it a high threshold stimulus and a four hour half distance. Then we went to unload. He did four workouts in two weeksthe rest was all empty.
Instead between Slovenia and next Sunday’s Italian championship?
There are six days to manage. So two days of post-Slovenia unloading. So we will work Wednesday (tomorrow, DNR), perhaps with three quiet hours. Thursday a little intensity and that’s it. After the Giro d’Italia, the Italian championship is always a lottery, also because he will race it alone. There is no team tactic, you have to be in the right place at the right time. And then you need the legs. Maybe he’s already getting there, but he’s fine. He will also need to have a little luck.
Then he will take a week’s break before the finale…
I recommended him to do a week of rest and another week of rest, then 10-12 days of discharge will come out which is more than enough. Then he will go to high ground. By choice, we don’t do a team thing, to leave them calmer. We will give them support, we are thinking of sending them to Andorra in 3-4, but without a coach and director, otherwise they feel trapped. They will be free to manage their own schedules and this works better on a mental level in my opinion.
He would like to do the Vuelta.
It’s on the list. If he were to do it, the perfect approach in my head would be the high ground, then he goes down and goes for it the Vuelta a Burgos and maybe even San Sebastian which comes immediately after. And from there straight to the Vuelta, with the finale featuring some Italian classics. But these are choices that are up to the sporting directors. He also said he would like to go back to China, but then we wouldn’t go to Australia in January. Doing too many close intercontinental flights is not for him and he would end the season too old to start racing again so soon. I really believe in Giovannino. I said in December that we would win Slovenia, do you remember that we also talked about it at the Giro? It wasn’t mathematics, but with good work it would have been possible.
