Cecchetto, second world champion for Team Equa

The captain of the Santa Cristina team and the national team wins the time trial title. Silver for Ana Maria Vitelaru

PAVIA

Paolo Cecchetto, captain of the Equa Team of Santa Cristina and of the national team, won the title of world champion in the time trial race of the MH5 category, while teammate Ana Maria Vitelaru had to bow to the superb performance of the American Oksama Masters, but still wins a prestigious silver in the WH5 race against time.

The start was therefore launched for the Azzurri from Pavia at the handbike and para-cycling World Championships being held in Baiea Corneau, Canada: Fabrizio Cornegliani’s gold in MH1 must be added to the medals of Cecchetto and Vitelaru. Experience had advised Cecchetto not to waste all his energy last week in the World Cup stage in Quebec City, so the captain of the national team, while taking home a second place in the time trial, saved himself for the world cup match against the time. Cecchetto played a masterful race on a kilometer circuit. 9,500 to be repeated twice, and defined as “really tough” by the same national team coach Rino De Candido, leaving the Belgian Charles Moreau at 13 “8 and his national team mate Mirko Testa at 31” 8. Good race also for Vitelaru, perhaps surprised by the Masters.

A bridgeable gap

«I saw Paolo warming up – explains Ercole Spada, president of Team Equa – when he is so concentrated he has no rivals and he proved it. And to think that he had broken his femur at the beginning of the year and had lost three months of training. Vitelaru’s gap with the American can be bridged in anticipation of the Paris Games. Ana Maria was unable to use the new handbike which weighs 5 kg less and in a time trial it means a lot ».

In turn, technical commissioner De Candido could not have hoped for a better start to the World Cup: «It is said that those who get off to a good start are half the battle. Results have arrived that are repaying us for all the sacrifices and the work done this year. Now we are waiting for the cyclists’ time trials, the Team Relay and the online tests to draw up a real balance “.—