Two-time World champion aiming for Olympic gold after a strange day in the Italian championships
Giorgia Bronzini (Diadora-Pasta Zara) spent a somewhat strange day in the peloton during the Italian elite women’s road race championships. The World champion, racing for GS Forestale [the sports team of her Forest Regiment of the Italian army - ed] was unable to escape the other race favourites herself, and had to to sit back as her trade teammate Giada Borgato went on to take her first ever tricolore jersey alone.
With Borgato away, with Silvia Valsecchi (Be Pink), and MCipollini-Giambenini duo Valentina Carretta and Marta Bastianelli [although Bastianelli was riding for GS Fiamme Azzurre, the sports team of the Italian prison service - ed] the peloton was effectively neutralised, as four of the race’s big teams were present.
“I tried in the small hills to do an attack, to get it down to a very small group for the sprint, but the Italian championship is always quite strange for the interests of the team,” the World champion explained to VeloNation after the race. “I had my teammate - for the team Diadora-Pasta Zara - in the breakaway, so I can do nothing after the break. But I felt so good and I said to my teammate to try, because all the best riders are with me in the group, and so I gave the possibility to her.”
2012 has been an injury hit year, where Bronzini suffered a dislocated shoulder in the GP Nicolas Franz in Luxembourg, and then injured her wrist in a crash in the first stage of the Exergy tour in the USA, her first race back. She now declares herself fit however, and ready for the big races of July.
“I didn’t think so before, because I was in the mountains two days ago, but I feel so good,” she said. “The hot weather is no problem for me, so I’m good; I’m in form now.”
The dislocated shoulder, and injured wrist are both behind her now, she says.
“I resolved all my problems, yeah.”
On to the Giro Donne and adding Olympic gold to her two rainbows
The next big race for the women’s peloton will be the Giro Donne, which starts on June 30th in the southern city of Napoli. Bronzini won three stages in the 2005 race, and one in 2007, but with the recent editions dominated by the likes of Marianne Vos and Ina Teutenberg, the World champion has not taken a victory in her home tour since.
She goes to this year’s edition with her usual confidence however, and hopes that things go her way this time.
“I will do that and I will try to have a chance to do my sprint, and try my best sprint,” she said. “I would like to win in the Giro!”
Vos may be a little below her best, coming back from a fractured collarbone as she is, but Bronzini doubts that the current Dutch champion will be easy to beat.
“But she’s always strong!” she smiled “I think for her it is not a problem for the collarbone break, she will be the best rider of the Giro, I think.”
Teutenberg will undoubtedly be the other big sprinter in the race, as one of the few riders to deny Vos in last year’s race.
“Ina is always strong, depending what is in her mind,” said Bronzini. “Marianne and Ina will be the main problems in the Giro for me, but maybe this year I will be more lucky than last year.”
After the Giro, the women’s peloton will ride what will be the biggest race of its year, in Olympic Games in London, on July 29th. The Italian team has yet to be officially announced, but the two-time World champion is an almost certain inclusion.
“After the Giro I will go to London,” Bronzini explained. “I saw the lap, and it is not so hard, and I will try to have a good group around me to finish in a sprint. But the Olympic Games is always a strange race, because we are less than usual.”
Although she doesn’t know the exact make up of the team around her, Bronzini has her own ideas of what it should look like.
“Me… I think me!” she laughed. “Because the names have not yet been announced. I think the possibility… we are five: [Monia] Baccaille, [Tatiana] Guderzo, [Noemi] Cantele, Bronzini, and [Elisa] Longo Borghini, and five for four [places]. We will see…”
Whether or not the team will be “tutto per Giorgia” - as it was in Copenhagen 2011 - or whether she would be the team’s sprinter “just in case” - as she was in Geelong 2010 - though, Bronzini would not say.
“It’s a secret! The tactics are a secret!” she laughed.
With the race highly likely to finish in a sprint however, the Italian tactics will almost certainly mirror those of last year.
“I think it will not be so easy for the others to win, and we will try to do our best,” she concluded.