Tomorrow at 6.30pm he will parade along via Roma in Cuneo at a slow pace together with numerous other Cuneo Olympians in the Olympic parade, on Sunday he will return to doing what he has done hundreds of times in his sporting career – wearing a bib. This time, however, the former walking champion from Cuneo Elisa Rigaudo, bronze medal in Beijing 2008, will not have judges who will evaluate her walking technique, but pedals to push on. For your debut in a granfondo you chose your home race, «La Fausto Coppi», and it couldn’t be otherwise. «A race that enhances our splendid valleys and with an exceptional organization that until now I have always experienced as a spectator, even a very interested one: in 2010 I went to support my husband in Castelmagno», she says. Cycling – watched on television, experienced on the roads of the Giro d’Italia, but also practiced, especially on mountain bikes at the beginning and end of the season in the last years of her career as a race walker – has always been there in her life. «I like the racing bike because it allows you to travel long distances and discover the area from a different perspective», she observes.
This year, when she gave her husband Daniele her Coppi registration, she decided to get involved and experience it as a protagonist, in the mediofondo. “The preparation was an excellent opportunity to pedal for a long time in our valleys, I will experience the race with the spirit of someone who wants to fully enjoy a day of sport in company and in ideal conditions, closed roads, super assistance – she says -. The Coppi is now a classic known everywhere”. She already faced the Fauniera last year, the fatigue of someone who has marched around the world for years can only be a friend, and so the only fear – which seems destined to remain such, given the favorable weather forecast – is the cold at 2,481 meters above sea level on the Fauniera. If cycling has now taken up the space in her days that it could not have before, athletics remains fundamental for the former walker, who after having watched the Italian feats from the stands at the European Athletics Championships in Rome, is now thinking about the Olympics in Paris. “I saw a young team with great prospects, which will give us a lot of satisfaction,” he concludes.
