by Marco Bonarrigo
Dad Nando is a cross-country skiing coach, mother Guidina Dal Sasso is a skier with three Olympics under her belt, brother Paolo is a cyclist and Nibali’s assistant. Elisa married a teammate and the greatest Italian cyclist: on Sunday she won Flanders again nine years later
Mum took part in three Olympics as an athlete, dad 5 as a coach and coach: they know what top-level sport is, but they never put pressure on me. The most beautiful phrase mum whispered to me after the bronze in Rio, in 2016: “You gave me the medal that I never won”. My father’s sentence came last year, during a deep crisis due to an infection: “Elisa, I need your help to milk the cows”. With their silences and few words they gave meaning to my sacrifices. Last Sunday in front of a million ecstatic Flemish fans, Elisa Longo Borghini from Ornavasso won for the second time the Tour of Flanders, the most famous classic in world cycling. she is the greatest Italian cyclist of all time: two Flanders races 9 years apart, a Paris-Roubaix, 2 Olympic medals, 3 world championships and more.
Rooted in the Piedmont mountains, the Longo Borghini are a dynasty of sports pioneers. From the end of the 70s, dad Nando brought dozens of successes to our cross-country skiing until the gold in Lillehammer 1992. Mom Guidina Dal Sasso was the first star in Italy with three podiums in the World Cup, three Olympics and 11 Italian titles in a The era in which the federation did not invest a penny in women’s Nordic disciplines.
From my mother – explains Elisa – I inherited that very hard head that I sometimes bumped into. From dad, bull strength and sense of humor: her jokes bring balance to my life as a gypsy. Paolo, my brother, gave me his love for cycling. Paolo Longo Borghini, 11 years older than his sister, raced among the professionals for 11 seasons as Vincenzo Nibali’s domestique. Being part of a family of athletes – explains Elisa – means being surrounded by people who perceive your pain and your joy, who know what it means to fail or find yourself with a body that does not respond to stimuli.
Like mother Guidina with skiing, in her 13-year career Elisa has steered women’s cycling towards authentic professionalism. We finally have a calendar of classics in parallel with the men’s, the Giro d’Italia and the Tour lei – she explains – and we are welcomed into military teams like the Fiamme Oro, whose uniform I wear. In Lidl-Trek, the club where you play (and from which you inherited Paolo Slongo, Nibali’s former coach, ed.), there is absolute equality between men and women.
In Ornavasso the Longo Borghini dynasty never stops sowing talent. Paolo married Kimberly Danza, a former Italian slalom runner: his daughters Anna, 14, and Marta, 10, are already winners in cycling and Nordic skiing, little Pietro and Cristian will arrive. Elisa married her teammate Jacopo Mosca last year: a couple who clock up 30,000 kilometers a year between races and training and live 200 nights away from home.
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April 2, 2024 (modified April 2, 2024 | 07:38)
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2024-04-02 05:38:36
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