Perhaps Italian cycling doesn't just have a world champion team, a "dream team" on two wheels that represents the entire movement, both female and male, like the mixed relay does. We don't just have Elisa Longo Borghini, Vittoria Guazzini and Monica Trinca Colonel or their male counterparts, Filippo Ganna, Mattia Cattaneo and Matteo Sobrero: there's also a voice, a truly beautiful voice, that of the state broadcaster, which accompanied us throughout the entire worlds week: I'm talking about Francesco Pancani.

Inspired as never before, flanked by Giada Borgato, Silvio Martinello and Davide Cassani and supported on location by the reliable Stefano Rizzato, the "Panca," as colleagues and friends call him, displayed the best of himself. A perfect celestial conjunction made of experience and passion, competence and grace. In one word: measure. He moved from time trials to youth races with absolute ease, handling the subject matter with great authority and without ever falling into the grandiosity of someone who's full of themselves, who thinks they know better than everyone else. In him, the rigor of reporting prevailed, combined with careful yet spontaneous, accessible and precise commentary. If one could, a gold medal should be given to him too: to the best cycling commentator in circulation. Perhaps simply the best commentator. Period.

WE'RE HERE TOO. Numbers don't tell everything, but they help us understand, to evaluate things on more concrete bases, even though we're missing the strong man, the one who can control races, the one who takes them head-on and knows how to master them. Let's not beat around the bush: we're missing a man in the top five of the world ranking, but we have one on the edge of the top ten in the "top ten": Christian Scaroni. Just as among the women, we actually have two (Elisa Longo Borghini third and Elisa Balsamo seventh)

Numbers, medals and jerseys. We brought the rainbow jersey home in the mixed relay which is gaining more and more traction, also because federations are understanding that, beyond being an extremely interesting event with a clear message, it's also the culmination of a movement that showcases itself both in the female and male categories. It's a world title that tells us we're not doing so badly, that we don't just have Filippo Ganna and Elisa Longo Borghini (and may God preserve them for us), but there's a series of female and male athletes who can race at the highest levels alongside these two symbols of our movement and, for this reason, achieve important objectives like the world team title.

Supporting this thesis are the five medals won: gold with the mixed relay, three silvers with Filippo Ganna, Nicolas Milesi and Matilde Rossignoli, bronze with Elisa Longo Borghini. Five medals like Spain and Belgium, the maximum haul recorded at the Montreal worlds, with the difference that Spain finished with one more gold and therefore won the medal count, ahead of the Netherlands and United States who finished in second place, and us third with Belgium.

But beyond the medal standings, the UCI also compiles a points ranking, which takes into account all placements in all worlds events, both time trials and road races. Well, in this special ranking we finished in first place with 1,056 points, ahead of Belgium (860), Netherlands (827), France (774) and United States (769). A ranking that isn't just a numerical or stylistic exercise, but is an "Olympic key": it's thanks to this ranking that our national team can hope to field five athletes at Los Angeles '28, instead of three as happened in Paris.

It's true, we don't have absolute talent, but there's a movement, there's a foundation. We have human material to work with, both in the top category and in youth categories. We have young riders we need to develop with patience, with a patience that perhaps we should have ourselves, given that there are nations, like France, that have been waiting for the "messiah" for a long time, while we had one (Nibali) and we didn't even notice.

ANYTHING BUT RAI… I say this in a low voice, among us who love cycling things and feed ourselves on this: Rai did us a great disservice with the blackout of over half an hour at the crucial moment of the worlds, but we somewhat deserved it. We deserved it because we're always ready to complain that cycling doesn't go on TV, that it airs at inconvenient times and then, when there's the chance to watch it in prime time, we don't even tune in.

What am I referring to? The Montreal worlds, the one "blacked out" on Rai 2 by mother Rai. We had the opportunity of a lifetime to demonstrate how strong, numerically, our passion was, how strong our critical mass was; instead, despite a worlds in prime time, therefore at times that should be ideal for all of us, the ratings were just over one million (1,051,000 viewers, with a 6.6% share), while Rai Sport (in the afternoon, until 7 PM) counted 515,000 viewers with a 5.4% share. In short, not exactly a great haul for a very open and simply spectacular worlds (perhaps Pogacar would have attracted more attention? Ah, if only we knew…).

It's clear that Rai disrespected more than a million viewers with a blackout that still cries out for justice, but many enthusiasts didn't even consider that there was a worlds race happening, and this worries me much more.

Editorial from tuttoBICI October