Yesterday Jacopo Mosca raced his last race as a professional athlete. The Gran Piemonte represented the end of a journey, but also the beginning of something new, a new life, still in cycling but from the other side, with which he still has to get his bearings. From Asti to Bra, everyone was there for him, many friends, family and all those who were fundamental in his journey in the world of cycling.

"It was a great emotion, I lived a particular and strange day. When you realize it will be your last race, you live it in a very emotional way and I still need to understand what happened. I had the opportunity to enjoy the race 100%, at the start Elisa unfortunately wasn't there, but there were many friends who accompanied me on this journey. The emotional moment came after the finish, I crossed the line and was able to embrace her, I was sharing my greatest emotion with her." Jacopo tells us. A day has passed since that unforgettable day, but the emotion is still tangible. A full day that didn't lack plot twists, especially from Elisa Longo Borghini who literally had to fight against time and bad luck to be present. First an anti-doping check early in the morning, the journey to the start interrupted by a highway accident and then finally the embrace after the finish with her Jacopo.

"My fan club had prepared about fifty t-shirts but they weren't enough, we needed at least a hundred," Mosca tells us, who didn't expect such participation. All his fans were equipped with a t-shirt that read "it's a tough life being Jacopo Mosca", an iconic phrase pronounced by Matteo Moschetti during the Tour of Poland this year to humorously describe his balancing act between racing and long-distance support for his wife Elisa Longo Borghini competing in the Tour de France. Many banners, applause, hugs and good wishes, and even one from Gianpiero Mollo, his first historic sports director, who not far from Bra used to take him on his first training rides.

From next year, Jacopo Mosca will sit in the Lidl Trek team car with the goal of growing and inspiring young riders. Elisa Longo Borghini suggests he would be perfect for running, but there will be time to think about that. "From this morning I no longer have the obligation to train, but in reality I love the bicycle so much that I will definitely get on the bike tomorrow and follow Elisa. It's a point that's a bit strange to understand, it's a moment of transition that I would have had to make sooner or later. Now a new adventure awaits me." If officially his career as a cyclist ended yesterday, the mind of the now former rider of the American team is still on the races, on the emotions, on the memories that will remain there forever.