Portuguese Cycling Magazine: You were in the Trek project since 2019 and 2024 was maybe one of the best seasons of your career. Why leave the team now?
Elisa Longo Borghini: I felt like after six years it was, for me, time for a change. These are probably the last three or four seasons that I will be racing and I wanted to experience something new and go for a new adventure, to find a new environment and new people. That’s all about it.
PCM: Why UAE? Even if in the men’s side it’s a very successful project, in the women’s side they don’t have a big signature win yet.
ELB: Yeah, that’s true and that’s what really attracted me. It’s the ambition of the team and the project that they have in the next three, four years. They really want to become one of the best teams and they have all the structure, all the resources to do so. They needed a leader, they spoke to me, it seemed like they have a very ambitious plan and it really attracted me.
PCM: And I’m sure having so many other italian riders also makes it easier to get settled.
ELB: Well, I’ve never had any problem with foreign athletes, because I’ve been since quite early in foreign teams where I was the only italian. For me, it’s not a big deal, but surely both the italians and the foreign riders that UAE have under contract are strong riders. They just miss somebody that is scoring a great result, but they are very strong riders and I always looked up at them and I was like: “OK, this team has potential and I’d like to race with these ladies”. I’m very happy with the people I found within the team so far.
PCM: This was a very active off-season, with three top 10 UCI ranking riders [Elisa Longo Borghini, Demi Vollering and Juliette Labous] changing teams and even other riders like Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, Marlen Reusser and Marta Cavalli also changing teams. How do you look at these changes and how do you explain that in women’s cycling there are so many high level riders changing teams? That’s not something we see as much in men’s cycling, for exemple.
ELB: That’s surely a very nice question. I think there are a lot of good riders right now. The level has grown and now everybody is trying to find a team where they can have their own chance and their own program. I think 2025 is going to be pretty amazing in the women’s peloton and you will see a lot of good races, because there will be many strong riders in different teams.
PCM: Besides those changes of teams, Anna van der Breggen and Pauline Ferrand-Prévot will be back on the road in 2025. How do you see those two big riders coming back? Do you think that riders that for the past few seasons haven’t been in the peloton now coming back changes in any way the dynamics and the atmosphere in the peloton?
ELB: Surely having riders coming back in the peloton means that women’s cycling has become more and more attractive and that there are big things coming up. I think with the Tour de France being reintroduced in 2022, people are more keen to try and get this Grand Tour victory and we’ve seen a lot more media attention. Then there are also some personal motivations behind a comeback, which I don’t know and I can’t judge. I just think it’s going to be nice to have Prévot and Van der Breggen back in the peloton, because they are top class riders. I wish them all the best, because I always wish my opponent to be strong, I like to battle and I like to have hard races.
PCM: You’ll be back on the Tour this year. What do you think of the parcours? Did you wait for it to decide if you were going back to the Tour or was it already something you wanted to do?
ELB: Starting from the very beginning, last year I didn’t do the Tour de France not because I didn’t want to, but because I crashed on training and I could not participate. Otherwise I would have loved to ride the Tour de France and it’s been a big disillusion for me to not have been at the Tour de France last year. It would have been a good chance to help my teammates and to go for stages. I saw the parcours, I think it’s exigent and very tough. I’ll probably be at the start, I don’t know if I’m going for GC or just hunting stages, because now it’s too soon. Surely it’s a race I want to be at, because in the last editions I wasn’t super lucky and I really would like to finish the Tour safe and sound for once, you know? To go from stage one to stage nine and finish it safely. That’s my biggest goal for 2025.
PCM: Have you already done any recon in Madeleine or Joux Plane or is that coming later in the year?
ELB: It’s probably coming later in the year. I had my off-season. I had to do my winter preparation. I haven’t really been focused on the stages of the Tour de France yet, to be honest.
PCM: A few weeks before the Tour, you’ll be at the Giro defending your title. Last year you had a really spectacular battle with Kopecky and you were only one second ahead of her before the last stage. How is it racing in those circumstances with such tight margins between riders? Is it more exciting or do you feel more pressure?
ELB: The pressure is for sure there, but I like those kind of thriller finals. They give me a lot of motivation, I like when things get spicy and I like to be in the mix and to really fight for what I’ve been preparing for. And I did prepare a lot for the Giro, it was my biggest goal of the season. I really wanted that Maglia Rosa, so I was very motivated that day.
PCM: How are you planning for the Giro-Tour double? It’s only one month between the start of the Giro and the end of the Tour. Do you plan to be at your peak already in Italy and then try to keep that level or are you trying to peak later at the Tour?
ELB: Let’s wait a moment, I’m surely not going for a Giro-Tour double. That is very ambitious – and I am an ambitious person -, but I am also very realistic. My goal is the Giro and then, if I feel well at the Tour, I will try to do the GC there. But it’s not an obsession, I’m not making a big thing out of this… Let’s see how the Giro goes and then we go to the Tour de France… the Giro-Tour double is not on my list. I’m a human (laughs).
PCM: Do you know the climbs of Valdobbiadene and Monte Nerone?
ELB: I know Valdobbiadene, it’s not far from Treviso. I don’t know the stage of Monte Nerone and it’s for sure worth a recon, because it seems like a very tough one, with a lot of climbing. I think you need to know the stage pretty well to try and do your best.
PCM: The final stage in Imola, the parcours is kind of similar to last year, with a very hilly stage in the last day to decide the final winner.
ELB: The last stage in Imola is actually the lap of the World Championships of Imola 2020, so I do know the parcours and I know it pretty well. I was third in that World Championship and I really like the stage itself. I think… I hope that the classification is already well shaped before the last stage, otherwise it’s another great battle there.
PCM: You will open the year for the third time in a row in UAE Tour. Is it any different now racing for the UAE team?
ELB: Yeah, surely it’s a bigger goal for the team. I’m right now on the Teide preparing, but of course at the end of the story I can just give my 100% and I can’t predict the outcome of the race. I will try to be in good shape and I will do my best to achieve my best possible result, and whatever it will be I will just finish the race empty and leave everything on the road to try and win the race, but I can’t promise a win. Everybody is there to try and win the race, and you will always find somebody stronger than you once. At the moment I feel good, but I can’t promise I’ll win the race.
PCM: This year Sanremo will be back. You told me already you are going to be there. Is it a big goal for you?
ELB: Sanremo is a race where I really want to do well, of course, but I think we have riders in this team like Swinkels and Persico that are more than capable to win the race. I’m going to be there and I’m going to be doing my best and trying to win the race, but I really look forward to the Ardennes. It’s where I put my red circle on and I’m more focusing on those three races, but of course in Sanremo I really want to be active.
PCM: I was looking at all the Spring World Tour classics and the Ardennes are basically the only ones you haven’t won yet. Is that something that you look at, like “what races haven’t I won that I can target next year?”. Is that something that you do?
ELB: It’s mostly that there is a race that I love more than any other – Liège-Bastogne-Liège. I really would like to win it once, because it’s a fascinating race and, together with Strade Bianche, those are my two favorite races. I won Strade and I never won Liège. I was always so close to it, and right now I really would like to try and go for the win.
PCM: This year, it will be the first time the World Championships will be raced in Africa. It marks the global expansion of cycling. What do you think of that and of the parcours itself?
ELB: I think it’s a pretty exciting thing. I’m really proud to be part of the peloton and I hope to be selected for the World Championships, of course. I really want to be in that race, because it’s a milestone. It’s the first time in Africa and, as you said, it marks the cycling going really worldwide. I think the parcours itself suits my characteristics and it will also be extra hard because it’s in mid-altitude, and as a rider you will already feel some more difficulties, so I really want to do well there.
PCM: You’ve been a pro since 2011 and you’ve been in different structures and projects. How do you see the changes in the cycling world throughout these 14 years? Has it changed a lot?
ELB: Generally, cycling has evolved a lot. Now, if you go to a race you see teams with buses and big trucks. When I turned pro, there were just small camping cars and vans. The level of professionalism has grown so much, as much as the level of the peloton. In the last five years, there has been a real peak in interest in women’s cycling, sponsors investing in women’s cycling, new teams coming up and I think this is a trend that we should keep up. I hope the sport keeps on growing.
PCM: Is there anything in particular that you think still needs to be done? Or is women’s cycling already in state that you can feel satisfied with?
ELB: I think the under-23 category needs to be more highlighted and that we need development teams to exist. At least there should be more support for the small teams, because that’s where all the human resources for the World Tour teams is coming from. Young riders should be able to go through the under-23 categories to develop and to become more mature in an athletic way, because sometimes I think we lose some talents because they are not ready and not physically mature enough to be just thrown in the World Tour races. Maybe out of 10 good juniors, only two or three are capable to become good elites, but not because the other seven or eight are bad riders. Maybe they are just a little bit behind with the growth or they need more time to develop as riders, so I really would like to see the basic of our cycling also grow, not only the pinnacle. It’s really sad for me to see talented juniors get lost because they may be going to a World Tour team and they are not able to follow the rhythm and the schedule… also the stress of being in a World Tour team. I wish they could have a steady, slow growth and develop as human beings, as riders and then being able to face the World Tour. I think we are losing a lot of riders not because they are bad, but just because they get lost in the process.
PCM: To close on a lighter note, ski is probably the sport with the biggest link to cycling. While I was researching for this interview, I saw that your mom was a professional skier. Is it a sport you did while growing up?
ELB: Yeah, I mean, I’m born with skis under my feet. Both my brother and I are born on the snow, because we followed my mother’s career and we’ve been traveling with the national team all the time. We started with cross-country skiing and then we both were really tired of snow, cold, testing skis all the time and seeing mom and dad with the skis… My brother chose cycling first and I’m very attached to him, I wanted to emulate him and to try this sport too. But I definitely started with skiing.
PCM: You said that since you were a child you were always traveling around. Did that make it easier for you to adapt to the pace of being a pro rider?
ELB: I don’t know. I can say yes, but I honestly don’t know. I only think traveling so much when I was a child made my mind more open and my eyes more keen to capture different cultures and to try to get to know them, to understand them better. I think I’ve been privileged throughout my whole life, to be honest, to have the opportunity to travel as a kid and to have the life that I have now.
We thank Elisa Longo Borghini and UAE Team ADQ for conceding us this interview.
Cover photo: UAE Team ADQ
