THE MAKING OF ELISA BALSAMO

Balsamo joined cycling's top tier after winning the rainbow jersey last year Owen Rogers gets the inside story on the Italian's rise to stardom from those who know her best

The first time many people became aware of Elisa Balsamo was when she emerged from her Italian teammate’s wheel to win the World Championship road race in Belgium last September. But Chiara Consonni remembers her friend winning another rainbow jersey five years earlier.

“We had new bikes; I had one in blue and she had one in white,” Consonni recalls of the 2016 Junior Worlds in Doha. “We knew that Elisa was super good in the sprint because she also won the junior Ghent-Wevelgem. I was the last girl in Elisa’s train and she was just so scared because she thought that something was wrong.

“I remember that she told me, ‘Chiara, I am not ready, I don’t want to do the sprint!’ and I shouted at her, ‘No! Now you do the sprint and you do what you are here to do!’ At 200m she started her sprint and as soon as she started I saw she would take the victory.”

As Balsamo stood on the podium in the Middle East, Consonni led her Azzurre teammates singing ‘Il Canto degli Italiani’, tears streaming down their faces.

Five years later in Leuven, Balsamo had matured. As her namesake Elisa Longo Borghini’s bludgeoning readout began to fade, it seemed as though the tyro would be forced into the wind too soon. But gone was the doubt of that Doha sprint, and as Longo Borghini looked back, Balsamo shook her head, she needed one last, desperate effort.

“I remember the last 500 meters because I was dying!” Longo Borghini says. “I opened up the sprint and Elisa followed me, I asked her to pass and she said no, so I kept my speed for like 10 seconds more, and then she went. I watched the sprint from afar because I completely exploded.”