The Trichianese is following the men’s road cycling team “No party, we are isolated on Lake Yamanaka, a thousand meters high”
The character
After Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004, for Luigino Moro it is time for Tokyo 2021. Among the Belluno people in Japan for the Olympic Games there is also the Trichianese transplanted in Romagna, one of the most popular masseurs in the world of professional cycling.
Moro began his career as a massage therapist at the beginning of the nineties, with Navigare Italbonifiche, and then continued with the Carrera, the Mg, the Mercatone Uno, the Mapei, the Bmc. And, of course, the national team. If as a cyclist in the Giri d’Italia he only raced one, as a masseur he competed in about thirty.
These days he is part of the blue technical staff who follows the five road riders who will compete on Saturday in the first round dedicated to two wheels, the men’s road test: Vincenzo Nibali, Gianni Moscon, Alberto Bettiol, Damiano Caruso and Giulio Ciccone. “It is my third Olympics and it is very different from the two I experienced previously, Sydney and Tokyo”, explains Moro, who in this 2021 experienced another great event, the Giro d’Italia, during which he worked for of the Groupama-Fdj. “Unfortunately, it looks more like a normal event than the big sports party we were used to: the measures taken by the organizers to contain the health emergency linked to the Covi-19 are, rightly, very strict. We are housed a hundred kilometers from Tokyo, on Lake Yamanaka, a thousand meters above sea level. In fact, we are isolated in the hotel and only on the day of the race can we go out on well-defined routes. The boys can only go out to train ».
To confirm the strict measures adopted by the organization is also the blue coach, Davide Cassani. “It is our golden prison,” wrote the coach on his Facebook page, referring to the location where the national team is staying. «The hotel is very comfortable and it is fortunate, because we are not allowed to go out except for training. We tried to jog the other day, but they picked us up by the ears and put us back in the kennel. I’m not kidding, they ran after us and ordered us to go back to the hotel, of course we obeyed ».
The track of Saturday’s test promises to be very tough: 234 kilometers starting from Musashinonomori Park and arriving at Fuji International Speedway, with a vertical drop of 4,865 meters. The key points will be Mount Fuji, 15 km very hard at 6% of average gradient and peaks that go beyond 10%; the Mikuni Pass, 6.5 km at an average gradient of 10.6 with peaks of 22 percent, and the Kagosaka Pass, located a few kilometers from the finish. In addition, we will have to deal with the great heat. «The heat is really impressive, you can’t breathe uphill and sweating is exaggerated», Cassani says again. «If there is this heat it will be an elimination race but forecasts say there will be rain. We’ll see”.
The favorites? «The athletes who performed well in the Tour which ended on Sunday» replies Luigino Moro. –