Filippo Pozzato: I wasted my talent for too long
Q&A with Tour of Flanders contender
Dismissed by many as a washed-up playboy, Filippo Pozzato has overcome the odds and a broken collarbone to find something approaching his best form on the eve of the Tour of Flanders. Earlier this month, the night before the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Pozzato spoke at length to Daniel Friebe about his injury, moving to Farnese Vini-Selle Italia and squandering his talent for far too long.
CN: Filippo, after your crash and broken collarbone at the Tour of Qatar, your Classics seasons already looked to be jeopardy. Instead, the following weekend you were racing at the Trofeo Laigueglia....
FP: The doctor told me to stay off the bike for a month, to give the bone time to calcify. The problem was that I couldn’t do anything for 40 days. I got angry with the doctor. I came back from Qatar on the Friday night, went into hospital on Saturday morning and told him to operate straight away. He said that was impossible, that I had to wait for 10 hours. I told him that I couldn’t wait ten hours, that I needed to be aback on my bike in three days and racing at the weekend. He asked me whether I was mad. My girlfriend said I was mad, too, but it was such a crucial point of the season. Even [Farnese Vini-Selle Italia directeur sportif Luca] Scinto didn’t want me to race. I said that I’d put my balls on the line and I wanted to give this everything. I told him that this was my decision. I didn’t want to lose anything, even psychologically – you know that after a week off the bike you start to lose your condition. In the end I was back on the bike after four days. I think I made the right decision. I either stopped for a month and threw away the whole first part of the season, or I did what I’ve done. Everything or nothing. There could be no compromise.
CN: If this had happened in any other year, we get the impression, you’d have reacted differently. Are we right?
FP: If this had happened to me in any other year, I’d just have listened to the doctor and stopped. But this is make or break time in my career. I made a choice [to come to this team] – a lot of people didn’t agree with it, because I could have joined a number of other ProTour teams – and I’m sure it was the right choice. But there’s no room for error any more. I can’t afford to say, ah, it’s no problem, we’ll see how I goes. I have to do everything I can now. Getting back on my bike came naturally to me and I didn’t even think. It would have been easier to throw my arms up and say, “Ah, more bad luck”. But when I get something into my head, I’m quite stubborn.
CN: But weren’t you in pain? Your shoulder had to be opened up and secured with metal pins. Like you said, usually the recovery time is 40 days.
FP: It hurt a bit but behind, where I fell. The thing that no one understands, but that us riders know well, is that when I fell I hit my pelvis and that twisted everything, so my back was hurting. The guy who operated was really good but I’m lucky to have a masseur, Michele del Gallo, who’s a magician. He can see straight away what my problem is, and he can solve it. In two days he’d sorted me out.
CN: It seemed from the outside that all the support you got from the public, particularly on Twitter, galvanized you to come back quickly. Your move to a smaller team, Farnese Vini, seems to have boosted your popularity in Italy. Having been portrayed in the past as a mollycoddled underachiever, you’ve suddenly become a plucky underdog.
FP: The public loved me moving to Farnese, the cycling world less so. But when I moved, it was because I had certain guarantees. Without those, I would never have moved. People in cycling criticized me over the races I might or might not do, but I’d already spoken to the organizers of those races. I knew what I had to do. It wasn’t a question of, whatever will be, will be, and let’s just cross our fingers. I was sure that I was going to do certain races, otherwise I would never have signed. I think the public understood this. The press, on the other hand, have always misunderstood me a bit. And it isn’t just the press; it’s anyone who doesn’t know me well. They get this impression that I don’t care about cycling, that I’m too concerned with all the trappings of success. But I think my problem has always been finding an environment where people have faith in me. If I can feel that, I can give 110%. But if someone starts nitpicking about something silly, I can only give 50%.
CN: As time has gone on, you must have felt or noticed that everyone’s faith in you has slowly ebbed.
FP: Winning is easy when you’re young. Expectations are the hard part. When you’re 30, you can deal with it, but when you’re 20 you don’t have the resources. In your head, you’ve already moved up to the next level, you’re already better than the rest, so then you don’t work as hard. And this becomes a limit. You’re better off being less physically gifted and stronger in the head. That’s better than being a phenomenon, having ‘class’ as they say – this was my problem. I’ve realized this now. I knew that I had a bit more than the others. I could say to myself, ah, you don’t have to worry about doing this or that, because you’ll be strong anyway. I’m finally learning now. For example, last year at Milan-San Remo, I knew that I didn’t have good legs because I’d realized that I’d been training badly – or using the wrong method, the one the team coach had given me, which was totally different from what I’d always done before. I did everything badly, I went to the Tirreno and I was fat, because I had 3 or 4 more kilos of muscle, but then I went to San Remo and I was at the front anyway, even though the day before no one would have staked a lira on me. When you commit to something, you can get three or four per cent more than the others. But I’ve got to the point where I know that all of the potential I’ve had, all of the talent, I have to exploit it because, if not, it’s like the parable of talents in the Bible: if you don’t exploit them, you throw everything away.
CN: But it’s taken you a decade to realise this. Why so long?
FP: It took me a long time, too long, without doubt. I still got good results because I was always ahead in races. But maybe I couldn’t do that extra thing which allowed you to win races. I understood this last year, when I had a bit of time away, a bit of time to reflect. I asked myself whether I wanted to give up. Because there was a time when cycling made me a bit nauseous. I took no pleasure in cycling any more.
More here.
Q&A with Tour of Flanders contender
Dismissed by many as a washed-up playboy, Filippo Pozzato has overcome the odds and a broken collarbone to find something approaching his best form on the eve of the Tour of Flanders. Earlier this month, the night before the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Pozzato spoke at length to Daniel Friebe about his injury, moving to Farnese Vini-Selle Italia and squandering his talent for far too long.
CN: Filippo, after your crash and broken collarbone at the Tour of Qatar, your Classics seasons already looked to be jeopardy. Instead, the following weekend you were racing at the Trofeo Laigueglia....
FP: The doctor told me to stay off the bike for a month, to give the bone time to calcify. The problem was that I couldn’t do anything for 40 days. I got angry with the doctor. I came back from Qatar on the Friday night, went into hospital on Saturday morning and told him to operate straight away. He said that was impossible, that I had to wait for 10 hours. I told him that I couldn’t wait ten hours, that I needed to be aback on my bike in three days and racing at the weekend. He asked me whether I was mad. My girlfriend said I was mad, too, but it was such a crucial point of the season. Even [Farnese Vini-Selle Italia directeur sportif Luca] Scinto didn’t want me to race. I said that I’d put my balls on the line and I wanted to give this everything. I told him that this was my decision. I didn’t want to lose anything, even psychologically – you know that after a week off the bike you start to lose your condition. In the end I was back on the bike after four days. I think I made the right decision. I either stopped for a month and threw away the whole first part of the season, or I did what I’ve done. Everything or nothing. There could be no compromise.
CN: If this had happened in any other year, we get the impression, you’d have reacted differently. Are we right?
FP: If this had happened to me in any other year, I’d just have listened to the doctor and stopped. But this is make or break time in my career. I made a choice [to come to this team] – a lot of people didn’t agree with it, because I could have joined a number of other ProTour teams – and I’m sure it was the right choice. But there’s no room for error any more. I can’t afford to say, ah, it’s no problem, we’ll see how I goes. I have to do everything I can now. Getting back on my bike came naturally to me and I didn’t even think. It would have been easier to throw my arms up and say, “Ah, more bad luck”. But when I get something into my head, I’m quite stubborn.
CN: But weren’t you in pain? Your shoulder had to be opened up and secured with metal pins. Like you said, usually the recovery time is 40 days.
FP: It hurt a bit but behind, where I fell. The thing that no one understands, but that us riders know well, is that when I fell I hit my pelvis and that twisted everything, so my back was hurting. The guy who operated was really good but I’m lucky to have a masseur, Michele del Gallo, who’s a magician. He can see straight away what my problem is, and he can solve it. In two days he’d sorted me out.
CN: It seemed from the outside that all the support you got from the public, particularly on Twitter, galvanized you to come back quickly. Your move to a smaller team, Farnese Vini, seems to have boosted your popularity in Italy. Having been portrayed in the past as a mollycoddled underachiever, you’ve suddenly become a plucky underdog.
FP: The public loved me moving to Farnese, the cycling world less so. But when I moved, it was because I had certain guarantees. Without those, I would never have moved. People in cycling criticized me over the races I might or might not do, but I’d already spoken to the organizers of those races. I knew what I had to do. It wasn’t a question of, whatever will be, will be, and let’s just cross our fingers. I was sure that I was going to do certain races, otherwise I would never have signed. I think the public understood this. The press, on the other hand, have always misunderstood me a bit. And it isn’t just the press; it’s anyone who doesn’t know me well. They get this impression that I don’t care about cycling, that I’m too concerned with all the trappings of success. But I think my problem has always been finding an environment where people have faith in me. If I can feel that, I can give 110%. But if someone starts nitpicking about something silly, I can only give 50%.
CN: As time has gone on, you must have felt or noticed that everyone’s faith in you has slowly ebbed.
FP: Winning is easy when you’re young. Expectations are the hard part. When you’re 30, you can deal with it, but when you’re 20 you don’t have the resources. In your head, you’ve already moved up to the next level, you’re already better than the rest, so then you don’t work as hard. And this becomes a limit. You’re better off being less physically gifted and stronger in the head. That’s better than being a phenomenon, having ‘class’ as they say – this was my problem. I’ve realized this now. I knew that I had a bit more than the others. I could say to myself, ah, you don’t have to worry about doing this or that, because you’ll be strong anyway. I’m finally learning now. For example, last year at Milan-San Remo, I knew that I didn’t have good legs because I’d realized that I’d been training badly – or using the wrong method, the one the team coach had given me, which was totally different from what I’d always done before. I did everything badly, I went to the Tirreno and I was fat, because I had 3 or 4 more kilos of muscle, but then I went to San Remo and I was at the front anyway, even though the day before no one would have staked a lira on me. When you commit to something, you can get three or four per cent more than the others. But I’ve got to the point where I know that all of the potential I’ve had, all of the talent, I have to exploit it because, if not, it’s like the parable of talents in the Bible: if you don’t exploit them, you throw everything away.
CN: But it’s taken you a decade to realise this. Why so long?
FP: It took me a long time, too long, without doubt. I still got good results because I was always ahead in races. But maybe I couldn’t do that extra thing which allowed you to win races. I understood this last year, when I had a bit of time away, a bit of time to reflect. I asked myself whether I wanted to give up. Because there was a time when cycling made me a bit nauseous. I took no pleasure in cycling any more.
More here.
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