Marco Villa is called to comment on the double final of his quartets and he does it with his usual frankness and calmness, answering all the questions that are asked. Starting from the fourth place of the girls, the best Olympic result ever.
“I’m sorry for the girls. We came here to be up front, our pace is the same as today for three kilometers, when we were ahead of Great Britain. Unfortunately, we missed eight to ten days of work all together to refine the details of the preparation. After all, think that Elisa Balsamo was forced to stay out two months ago due to a fracture to her hand and nose, she tried to recover maybe even a little hastily to compete in the Giro d’Italia, to find her condition and instead she got sick and we didn’t see her for a week. She worked with us in Montichiari for only two days, then she left with the national road team and we really didn’t try the quartet very much, we weren’t able to perfect our work. Elisa’s strength is that she recovers quickly but the double injury 2023-2024 has certainly left its mark. And Guazzini herself spent two months in bed last year after a bad fall and this year when we pushed she struggled to get back to her usual pace.”
How far can these girls go?
“If this precarious preparation has brought us here, to fourth place in an Olympic tournament, I invite you to believe it because these girls are young and can easily aim for the next Olympics.”
Which couple will we see competing in the madison?
“The idea for the madison has always been Guazzini-Balsamo, then in the last two months they have never been able to race together or even try. So in Ghent Guazzini and Consonni did well and won a category 1 race: now we will talk about it with the three of them and make the decision together”.
And now we come to men…
“We were unable to arrive fully prepared like in Tokyo or like Australia did this year, which did the same as us in 2021. We were missing small details: Ganna prepared very well for the time trial and then perhaps went into decline a little, Milan is growing and last week was struggling more. Consonni was in more difficulty than in Tokyo: small differences that meant we couldn’t do better. In practice, we were able to work together for a short time and this turned out to be a problem. But if this medal arrived today, it is the result of a good path that brought us to Paris as protagonists”.
But is bronze a nice medal?
“I like the bronze: this morning I told them not to underestimate the bronze medal because I only won that at the Olympics (smiles, ed.). They listened to me and made me happy.”
Reflections on the future of this quartet and the entire movement behind our boys are inevitable.
“The cycle of this quartet depends on them, Pippo often comes to the track to prepare for time trials, for example, and in any case they know that Villa will always be there for them. We have some new talent, Manlio Moro hasn’t raced here but he had the times of the others and the guys respect that. Then we have the youngsters who I hope can follow in the footsteps of Viviani, Ganna and company, but I won’t hide the fact that I’m struggling: already in their first year as Under 23s they struggle to understand how useful the track can be. Managers and agents must come to our aid, everyone must understand that the track and the road can coexist. Just look at what Welsford did in Australia, Hayter in Great Britain, Faulkner and Dygert with the women’s quartet.”
We saw that Ganna is a reserve in the Madison: is there a chance of seeing him on the track again in this event?
“It’s true, Ganna is Madison’s reserve: he told me that tomorrow he’ll go home and turn off his phone, but if I need him I know where to find him…”