At first look and with out desirous about it an excessive amount of, Elisa Longo Borghini‘s determination to depart a group like Lidl-Trek, the place she has shone so brightly for the final six years, feels borderline incomprehensible.
However whereas that is precisely what she has now performed, and with a respectably lengthy new contract as effectively, switching to UAE Group ADQ for the following three seasons, it seems Longo Borghini solely wants the briefest of explanations for her imminent departure to a brand new group to make full sense.
In terms of outcomes, the explanation why it nonetheless stays such a significant, career-defining, break for Longo-Borghini to depart Lidl-Trek all however converse for themselves. In 2024 alone the Italian veteran’s victories together with her squad included the Tour of Flanders for the second time, the Nationwide Championships highway title for the fifth time, and the Giro d’Italia Ladies for the primary, main the latter from starting to finish. A win within the 2022 Paris-Roubaix was one other main spotlight of many.
Nevertheless it’s not solely that she’s loved a lot success on a sporting stage that makes Lidl-Trek so vital for Longo Borghini. As Longo Borghini places it in an interview with Cyclingnews late within the season about her present Lidl-Trek squad, “I grew to become the rider I’m at this time due to them.”
It could be true that the phrase she then makes use of, “at Lidl-Trek it appears like I am in a household”, is one that’s recurrently trotted out by bike riders to explain their squads. Nevertheless, in Longo Borghini’s case the very fact her husband, Jacopo Mosca, at the moment rides for Lidl-Trek’s males’s squad, offers the drained outdated grande famiglia cliché a way more genuine ring than ordinary.
Put the emotional, sporting {and professional} hyperlinks all collectively, anyway, and also you’d assume that for Longo Borghini that the thought of leaving Lidl-Trek is all however inconceivable. However then it seems, it isn’t solely logical she is leaving, however you virtually can not help however cheer her on for wanting to take action.Â
“To start with I wish to thank Lidl-Trek for what they did for me, all the assistance they gave to me,” she tells Cyclingnews in an interview shortly earlier than collaborating in her final race of the season, the Reinas de la Alhambra criterium in Granada.
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“I grew to become the rider I’m now due to them and I felt like I used to be in a household.
“However on the opposite facet of issues, I type of wanted a change, like a brand new problem or a brand new journey. Additionally, I wished to face the unknown just a little bit, as a result of now I am 32 and I want to expertise that in what might be the final three, 4 years of my life as a racer: perhaps, who is aware of?”
Outdoors the consolation zone
Longo Borghini is sitting in the identical resort foyer as Mavi GarcÃa (Liv AIUIa Jayco), additionally collaborating within the Reina de la Alhambra criterium, when she discusses her short-to-mid-term future with Cyclingnews. Given the previous Spanish Nationwide Champion is about to begin one other 12 months of racing aged 40, the Italian star might additionally hardly ask for a clearer supply of first-hand inspiration for longevity within the sport. Nevertheless it seems Longo Borghini’s willpower to not get caught in a rut earlier than she does lastly give up – at no matter age – is super-strong already.
“I am not going to be a bicycle owner without end and I wished additional expertise exterior my consolation zone,” she explains.
“I am an bold individual, I like challenges, I prefer to go the place I would not say – I would not say no person would go as a result of it isn’t true – I might moderately say I prefer to go the place there may be stuff to find.
“And I noticed in that group [UAE] there could be a great way to find a brand new setting, a brand new type of world usually. So I simply wished to do this.”
Longo Borghini is not heading into a very unfamiliar territory at UAE, although. Her coach Paolo Slongo – to whom she devoted her 2024 Flanders win, given his help in her comeback from a tough 2023 season – is coming together with her as effectively. Then two Lidl-Trek teammates are additionally leaping throughout, Brodie Chapman and Elynor Bäckstedt.
“There will likely be many different individuals I do know there, numerous Italians, too, so it will be acquainted – a brand new problem however however I do know the place I am going,” Longo Borghini says.
“It will be new however I actually hope we will create a great group of individuals working collectively.”
Settling scores on the Giro d’Italia
But regardless of the future holds and even in a profession with quite a few excessive factors, she acknowledges that capturing the Giro this 12 months was a landmark success. With participations stretching again to 2011 and podium finishes in 2020 and 2017, her residence Grand Tour was actually a win she’d been longing for a very long time.
However the truth that she was mendacity second total in 2023 within the Giro when she crashed after which needed to DNS because of her accidents absolutely makes this win even sweeter. Notably as she then managed to guide the 2024 race from starting to finish, within the course of changing into the primary Italian Giro champion since – remarkably – Fabiana Luperini approach again in 2008.
“If I used to be in search of a spotlight in 2024, I might begin with the Giro, it has been a purpose I’ve chasing for therefore lengthy and it was additionally an exhilarating finale,” she says.
“We did concentrate on the Giro from the start of the 12 months, we knew the route was good for me. The Tour de France was extra for the kids within the group, like Gaia [Realini] and Shirin [van Anrooij]. I might have gone there to help them and perhaps hunt for some stage wins.
“So we had a full concentrate on within the Giro. I went there with the ambition of being within the prime 5 within the opening TT, and I ended up successful the TT and it was for me it was a fantastic honour to put on the maglia rosa from the start to the top.”
One other main spotlight of 2024, after all, was taking the Tour of Flanders for the second time in her profession. Normally for a rider, successful a motorbike race the primary time stays probably the most particular of all of them. However as Longo Borghini says, the influence of her victory this time round was far higher.
“Again then after I received it in 2015 I used to be a type of a child and I used to be probably not desirous about what it was,” she explains.
“I sensed it however I used to be not totally conscious of the significance of a victory like Flanders. Now I am a extra mature girl and I grew up quite a bit in the previous few years” – “Fortunately” she provides with fun – “so I’ve a full appreciation of what Flanders itself means for biking.
“It is that I didn’t have it prior to now, however now I really feel it extra, it is a victory that has actual significance.”
What victories in races as totally different as Flanders and the Giro confirmed, too, was that at 32, Longo Borghini is much from shedding her versatility with age. Quite, the alternative is proving true, and once more that renders what she could possibly obtain with UAE Group ADQ an much more intriguing prospect.
“Completely,” the Italian agrees. “I imply, going from successful Flanders to successful the Giro is kind of particular and I recognise that, I am fairly happy with that, however I am certain I couldn’t have performed it unassisted,” she says together with her sometimes humble air.
“I had a group that was at full power for the Giro and Paolo [Slongo]Â was my coach and he was totally devoted to me and I actually should thank Lidl-Trek for all the assistance they gave to me.”
Unfinished enterprise: the Tour and the Worlds
The following step for Longo Borghini at UAE Group ADQ will possible be to see how her ambitions match with these of the squad. However there may be already one main race the place she clearly has a way of unfinished enterprise for 2025 and past. That will be the Tour de France Femmes, after all, the place a promising sixth place within the first version of the revived race, in 2022, was adopted by two brutal collection of misfortunes within the following years.
In 2023, after crashing and withdrawing from the Giro d’Italia Ladies, she returned to compete within the Tour de France Femmes however was as soon as once more pressured to desert earlier than stage 7 because of a pores and skin an infection, capping off a difficult 12 months. Then in 2024, she did not even make it to the startline because of a coaching crash shortly beforehand. As Longo Borghini agrees with a wry snort, life has ‘not been truthful to her’ within the Tour de France to date.
“It positively hasn’t,” she says. “I do not wish to snub the Tour de France in any respect, it is simply that life retains on giving me lemons when I’ve to go there!
“I might have cherished to complete it [in 2023] and I might have cherished to have raced it this 12 months. To be trustworthy, after I was watching the levels afterwards I felt fairly foolish as a result of while you crash on a coaching day, you actually really feel foolish. And particularly if the crash makes you skip one of the vital prestigious occasions on the calendar.
“I do not know clarify the sensation in English. However I felt like ‘out’ of what I belonged to [laughs] and actually silly. Effectively, type of, a bit. Definitely having to skip the Tour de France was irritating, I might say.”
It is virtually stunning to listen to a rider being this harsh on themselves – and being so prepared to confess it, too. Nevertheless it’s additionally testomony to how prime names like Longo Borghini can overcome or perhaps use these onerous emotions to drive themselves on. Definitely, the Italian is set to set the document straight within the years to come back. Perhaps as quickly as subsequent July.
“Final 12 months I’ve to overlook the final levels which have been probably the most iconic ones and this 12 months I did not even begin as a result of I used to be a ‘mummy’ [wrapped in bandages from the injuries – Ed].
“So I am like, let’s hope that subsequent 12 months [2025] every little thing falls into place and no less than I can get there. For the second my greatest ambition is to begin the Tour de France and to complete it.”
Longo Borghini does have her eyes on different targets as effectively, although, beginning in April, the place too many near-misses in Liège-Bastogne-Liège – she’s completed second each in 2024 and in 2023 and 6 instances within the prime ten – is a matter she’d like very to resolve in 2025. Then on the different finish of the calendar, there’s one other race that for Longo Borghini in 2025 will achieve an additional layer of significance to its already appreciable status – and that is all because of its location subsequent September.
“I might actually like to try to win Liège as a result of it is a race I really feel in my coronary heart. However I’ll attempt to do effectively once more within the World Championships, too, specifically as a result of it is in Rwanda,” she says, “as a result of it is in Africa, which is the place life began, and that makes it type of additional particular.”
Fairly other than the connections with the beginnings of humanity itself, wanting on the Worlds on a strictly private stage, Longo Borghini’s personal performances within the Worlds are hardly to be sneezed at – and once more, it is testomony to her exceptional consistency.Â
Her first of three bronze medals was secured in her second 12 months as a professional, approach again in 2012 and her newest got here simply this 12 months behind Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) and Chloé Dygert (USA). Given her evident refusal merely to sleep on her laurels or keep in her consolation zone, regardless of the context, it is onerous to imagine that is nearly as good as it is going to ever get for the Italian star, although. And it turns on the market’s but another excuse for Longo Borghini to be additional motivated concerning the Rwanda Worlds, too.Â
As her feedback about appreciating the significance of the Tour of Flanders to the Belgians or her causes for leaving Lidl-Trek already confirmed too, Longo Borghini has a robust sense of perspective. So it is maybe no shock that one factor boosting her enthusiasm for a rainbow jersey in 2025 is she additionally thinks that the World Championships in Rwanda will remind individuals how a lot the game is gaining an more and more worldwide texture.
As she places it, skilled biking has been stretching more and more far past its conventional European and – to a lesser extent – American strongholds for a while now. Rwanda is the newest place to mirror that, and maybe one of the vital vital milestones in that course of, too.
“I am very excited each time I see extra individuals from Africa within the peloton,” she says. “I get the sensation that biking is getting extra inclusive, and it is getting extra reasonably priced. I like to see the way in which we’re seeing Eritreans, and and even a Nigerian rider [Ese Lovina Ukpeseray with the Canyon-SRAM Generation team – Ed.] now within the peloton.
“I feel that is how sport needs to be, sport needs to be democratic and open to all people. So it is good that the World Championships are there, perhaps we will encourage some individuals and perhaps we will carry one thing [of our sport]Â to a distinct place, too.”
