Perhaps it's time to sit at a table and try to put some thoughts together, because words are running out today. Let's be clear, Filippo Conca is the rightful Italian champion, he hasn't stolen anything. That tricolor jersey, blessed and historic, still means something to me, to us, to you, because he sweated for it. He put his soul into it, gave it his all, and he's taken it home and will wear it for an entire year, in who knows which races, on which occasions, but that hardly matters.

Perhaps it's time to sit at a table, with a few chairs, to try to look each other in the eyes, from Federal President Cordiano Dagnoni to League President Roberto Pella: enough with superlatives and back-slapping, long live everyone and long live Italian cycling, the measure is full, the bottom has been reached. We hit rock bottom in a "national championship" run in Friuli, doing everything to make it an "absolute" as if Paolo Bettini were still racing, thus mortifying Jonathan Milan (if I were him and Ganna, I'd have stayed home) who rode an absolute level race, backed by two giants named Jacopo Mosca and Simone Consonni, who do everything possible to prevent Jonny from sinking into the abyss.

Our guy shows solidity and condition, but on those climbs of San Floriano del Collio he struggles, suffers too much, the price to pay is high even for a giant like him, even though the Friulian from Lidl-Trek contains his defeat with pride. But today it's not Milan losing, it's not Conca winning, it's Italian cycling losing across the board, a cycling that perhaps should reflect, face reality, after receiving such a lesson: brought to its knees by an "elite-under 23" team, let's say an amateur team born from a blog, that delivers a cycling lesson to everyone without ifs or buts.

A clean, white, and pure jersey like Swatt Club, a team composed of athletes that cycling had set aside, rejected, and shelved, and today found themselves dictating the law. A team of outcasts, which today showed its strength and the strength of a movement that no longer exists. Something doesn't add up in this scorching Sunday at the start of summer that for our movement smells like the end.