Elisa Longo Borghini's spring was supposed to take a completely different direction. After her extraordinary performances at Strade Bianche and Trofeo Binda, her form was more than excellent and the UAE ADQ team athlete could truly think big. Unfortunately, however, things never go as expected and the Italian champion was forced to drop off the radar to get back on track, thus facing a northern campaign very different from what she had planned.

These days she is at Teide and working hard to be ready for the Giro. When we call Elisa, she is serene, joking, making quips with us—it's her rest day and she can finally allow herself a moment to breathe and some leisure time; the day after, the grind starts again and it will be time to suffer once more. We immediately understand that the difficult period is behind her; she's the Elisa we know. It's never easy to talk about one's setbacks and admit one's vulnerabilities, yet Longo, with the sincerity that distinguishes her, goes back to March 19th and explains to us what happened over the last two months. It was on that date that she realized she wasn't feeling well—it was the flu with some fever and a headache; Elisa skipped Sanremo and tried to get back in shape for the northern classics. «I thought it was a normal flu, I thought it had all passed, but then the cough and cold came and I dragged them with me until April 20th. My big problem was at night; I kept coughing and couldn't sleep, but especially when I got on the bike I really struggled. I raced Dwars door Vlaanderen and Tour of Flanders, but then I had a relapse. In the end it was bronchitis, stopping was a forced choice and we treated it with antibiotics,» Elisa explains, noting that despite finishing Tour of Flanders, her form had been excellent.

Faced with the impossibility of racing, and even with the necessity of putting the bike aside for a week, there are those who would have given up and written off the season. Instead, Elisa reset everything and tried to take the good things from that complicated period. Her family was always by her side, a special team that understands well how difficult life as a professional cyclist is; she took the opportunity to spend a few days at the seaside with her mom Guidina and her nephew Christian, something unusual, like watching races on TV rather than living them, yet in that she began to move forward. Among the many beautiful things, however, Longo dwells on that unexpected friendship with Vittoria Ruffilli, the Laboral Kutxa athlete who went from being her fan to becoming one of those people who helped her not give up. «Vittoria is a sunny girl with her head on her shoulders, she's a sensitive person who immediately understood that I was going through a complicated moment. Training while feeling unwell is not nice at all, but she helped me not to give up. We didn't have big conversations about my situation; she simply pedaled beside me and with her jokes and stories kept me company, gave me a reason not to go home. She probably doesn't realize it because she thinks I did her good, but in reality it was her and I owe her a debt,» Elisa recounted.

Thinking about the other major appointments of the season is inevitable; in less than two weeks the Giro Women will begin and Elisa will be at the start as the defending champion. Before heading to Teide, she went to scout some stages and decided to try the Nevegal time trial, 12.7 km against the clock and all, the first hard day of the pink race that could create really significant gaps and then the next stage. «Before going to altitude I decided to try two stages and I really liked them. I remembered the Nevegal climb time trial from Contador's victory in 2011; it's very hard. The central section is at 10% and will require a very violent effort; it's the first real climb of the Giro and there will be heavy gaps. I decided to also look at the next stage, Longarone – Santo Stefano di Cadore; many underestimate it because they think everything will be decided on Colle delle Finestre, but it will be fundamental. Perhaps it won't tell us who wins the Giro, but certainly who loses it; someone could arrive in crisis and exhausted at the time trial and could really suffer from it,» Elisa explains. At Teide, meanwhile, the days pass between hard work and lots of smiles. With her are Alena Amialiusik, Silvia Persico and Eleonora Camilla Gasparrini, three trusted teammates, but above all three friends with whom not only to pedal but especially to confide in. Between one training session and another, they never failed to follow the Vuelta Femenina a bit as fans to support their teammate Paula Blasi.

At the Giro, the competition is high; Demi Vollering is the name that has been bounced around the most, but in reality there are many other athletes ready to battle it out and give the defending champion a run for her money. Elisa has never hidden her great love for the pink race and wants to be ready for a great comeback. And we are sure that the Italian champion will deliver plenty of emotions to her fans along the roadside.