I’m Not Falling. I’m Jumping.

(Non sto cadendo, sto saltando ⭢ leggi qui )

For a long time, I kept postponing this decision.

Not because I didn’t see what was happening, but because I truly believed I could still come back. That belief has carried me through most of my career. Every time something went wrong—an injury, an illness, a forced stop—I told myself the same thing: I’ll recover, I’ll rebuild, I’ll get back to where I was. And more often than not, I did.

This time, in some ways, it worked again.

Coming back to racing wasn’t a mistake. Returning to competition wasn’t the wrong choice. On the road, especially this summer in the US, I found sensations and results I honestly didn’t expect anymore. They reminded me why I race in the first place, and why cycling has always been more than just a sport to me.

So no—the problem was never coming back.

The problem was where I was trying to come back.

Track endurance demands a very specific kind of continuity. It’s not just about workload and repetition, but about sustaining that effort over time. And I’ve never been the obvious talent. I’ve never been the athlete things come easy to.

I’ve always had to build my place with work, stubbornness, and a strong head. I won races not because my legs were better than everyone else’s, but because I learned how to suffer less—how to use my head, manage my effort, and arrive at the final moments with something left to give.

That has always been part of who I am. And it’s also why this path, today, has become impossible to sustain.

I kept thinking that restarting one more time would finally be enough. But the moment when I wouldn’t just be fighting not to get dropped, but actually be competitive again, was never going to arrive. Not because I didn’t want it badly enough, and not because I lacked motivation, but because my body simply cannot sustain what that path requires anymore.

There was an even harder truth to accept. Even if, somehow, I managed to get back to where I once was, today that wouldn’t be enough anyway. The level has changed. The sport has evolved. And chasing a version of myself that no longer exists in the present would only keep me stuck in the past.

For a long time, I confused motivation with possibility. My mind is still there—competitive, demanding, convinced it can win. My body isn’t following in the same way anymore.

I could have continued. I could have asked myself, once again, to sacrifice everything, to commit fully to trying to rebuild something I already knew wouldn’t take me where I wanted to be. But I don’t believe my body could handle that effort anymore. And, just as honestly, I know that mentally I’m no longer willing to ask it—especially knowing that even success would fall short of what today’s level demands.

That’s when the choice became clear.

I could stop. Or I could relaunch, by changing direction entirely.

Not by insisting on a path that no longer fits, but by choosing an effort that has always been more natural for me.
Sprint.
A discipline I set aside years ago, not because of a lack of love, but because of a lack of opportunity. A type of work my body understands differently, and a project that allows me to build something new instead of endlessly trying to reconstruct something that’s already gone.

This choice comes with no safety net.
I know exactly what it asks of me.
If I don’t reach certain standards, there won’t be a way back.
There is no plan B.
It’s either this, or it’s over.

And that’s precisely why it feels honest.

This isn’t nostalgia, and it isn’t a backup plan. It’s a real, structured, total project—one that leaves no shortcuts and no easy way back.

For the first time in a long time, I see a goal that feels clear and real, aligned with who I’ve always been as an athlete: instinct, speed, pure competitiveness. I don’t know where this jump will take me, but I do know that staying where I was, pretending everything could eventually return to how it used to be, had already taken too much away from me.

I’m not leaving sport. I’m not running away from difficulty. I’m choosing to put myself back on the line in the only way that still feels honest.

I’m not falling. I’m jumping.

And whatever happens from here on, at least it will be in the right direction.