At 51 years old, Paolo Bettini, in addition to having more critical and attentive eyes on the cycling landscape, is touring Italy with his partner and actress Marianella Bargilli in "Pedale Rosso", where he combines social commitment and culture with the aim of raising awareness in the community about fighting gender violence and equality of rights. But his heart still beats for cycling, and as always, the Livorno champion is very frank: "There's confusion of thought and planning in today's cycling".

Paolo, what are you referring to?

"On one hand, we're told cycling is doing well, but on the other hand, what I'm experiencing firsthand seems to suggest it's not going well at all. The confusion? It doesn't seem like there's a willingness to seriously sit down and understand what we need to do for cycling. First, we need to start exchanging ideas. Nobody has the magic potion, but I'm convinced that we've moved from a very individual sport to a very team-based one. There are many of us who can contribute to cycling, and together we can make a difference. We need to start exchanging ideas and opinions, analyze the data to truly understand what cycling is today. We know what it was, but especially what cycling should become. Because it's a continuous evolution, and the life we live today is much faster than the one we lived 25 years ago".

Today's young professionals who win a lot, do they risk getting bored?

"Careers today are much, much shorter compared to ours. We started very young, we started out of passion, we started because passion was transmitted to us in our families. We built ourselves, we lived on the road, then we became professionals and continued to dream, even while earning money. Today, it's all instant gratification, and this is where I return to the topic of confusion. There's a radical change in the approach to the profession, there's no longer a linear progression through categories: once the under-23 category was designed to protect young athletes, today it's a category that no longer serves a purpose, and the UCI tells us this by saying they won't even organize the under-23 world championship anymore. This means professionals are already being targeted as juniors, at 15-16 years old, and at 17-18 you must already be circling around a major professional reality with 'Development' teams, satellite squads. And at 21, if you haven't won a Tour, you start becoming old. Cycling has changed, and we in Italy especially are still tied to the old way of thinking. But today's kids, when they turn professional and win, earn so much money that it's true they peak at 20 but won't reach 30. I bet they'll hardly have more than ten years of career".

Among young names, there's a lot of talk about this French rider Seixas: what do you think?

"He's the result of a nation we used to make fun of when I was a professional: France no longer had a movement, no more athletes, had two teams put there that, we said, were more political than competitive. They suffered perhaps more than us, but today, every year, they give us a new name, someone to bet on. Alaphilippe arrived, and then many others followed. They've built cycling, and every year, I repeat, they give us a name to bet on, and we enjoy trying to understand if he will or won't be successful. We don't have such young talents".

Let's talk about Italy.

"I want to wish Italian cycling to have the humility to look each other in the eyes, to look within, and have the courage to start changing. Giving a nice bike to the youngest, finding it under the Christmas tree? That's the first step. Cycling in Italy is dying at all levels, and youth cycling is dying especially, a bicycle is not enough, we start from there, but then there's a lot of grassroots work to do".

Let's mention some names.

"We have very few. We have Jonathan Milan who will entertain us with his sprints, we have Filippo Ganna who we've seen somewhat transformed, I hope he transforms a bit more because I think with his physique he could really try to win Paris-Roubaix. Then there's Ciccone, who is our most solid rider, with ups and downs, but when he's at his peak, he gives us great satisfaction".

And Lorenzo Finn?

"I like him very much, and I like how they're managing him at Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe Rookie, one of those Development teams I was talking about before. He could be exactly what we said earlier, right? The very young rider to throw into the mix: they're still keeping him there, still helping him grow calmly, and that's important. I think he could do great things, truly".