(Ho sempre fatto tutto⭢ leggi in italiano)
When I was a kid, whenever people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up,
I never gave just one answer.
Not because I was undecided, but because I knew that one answer would never be enough.
I’ve always done everything.
Not to collect experiences, but because I learned fast and needed to understand how far I could push myself.
I grew up moving.
Everything else came later.
Skiing was my first language.
I grew up far from the mountains and couldn’t really train — I skied almost only on race weekends.
It was a game, because I was young, and because I liked being there, spending time with others.
But the competitive instinct was already there. I liked racing, and I liked winning.
Not for technique or preparation — which were minimal — but for instinct, for speed, for that natural urge to go faster.
Ski, athletics, swimming, cycling, orienteering.
The context changed, not the feeling.
My body understood before my mind.
Gesture, rhythm, focus always came before words.
I was always in the water.
When I was little, my dad used to call me “fish”: give me a pool or the sea and I would disappear in it for hours.
Swimming always came naturally to me.
But looking back now, it wasn’t the water that gave me adrenaline.
Unlike cycling, skiing or running, speed isn’t something you really feel there.
Swimming only lit me up in competition.
In training, what stimulated me was the group, the constant comparison, the ongoing competition.
It wasn’t my sport, but it was another way to measure myself.
Athletics was different.
I never practiced it consistently. I did two events a year: school competitions and the “Mini Olimpiadi di Dese”.
I never trained specifically. I was cycling, and athletics training simply didn’t fit into my days.
And yet, something emerged in short run and long jump.
Some youth records are still there.
The year of the record in the 9years long jump, I also had the most important cycling race of the season on the same day.
I skipped the awards ceremony because I had to go jump.
When I arrived, the other girls said: “No. This year we thought we could finally win.”
I jumped. I set another record.
No specific training. Just the will to win and a body that knew what to do.
I would have liked to try athletics seriously.
Not to become someone, but to understand how far I could have landed.
Then I kept cycling.
And every now and then, even today, that curiosity comes back.
Cycling, instead, never left.
From the age of eight until today, it’s been the most continuous thread of my sporting life.
Not always the easiest one.
From thirteen onward came physical problems, stops, restarts.
A career made of ups and downs, of phases where it felt like starting from zero every time.
I was never a Champhion.
But I never disappeared when things got complicated.
Around me, there was everything else.
Orienteering in middle school, with provincial and regional wins.
Volleyball, beach volleyball, basketball, football at the playground.
Dance, never really studied, but always felt it.
Singing, theatre — things I would have liked, but that didn’t belong to the world I came from.
Looking back, the line is clear.
I never changed because I was confused.
I changed because I learned fast and, once I understood, I needed to move on.
At some point I realised that insisting in the same direction was no longer growth, but resistance.
And I was never good at resisting out of fear of change.
Maybe that’s why today, once again, I feel the need to change direction toward a new sporting path.
Not to run away from who I was, but to continue being who I really am.
The next chapter has already begun.
From January, I’ll take you with me.
Francesca Selva 