The Last CANTELEight Waltz

At the end of 2013, the Varese racer hung her bike up. A degree in economics with honors, a CV full of foreign languages, experience abroad and medals. But at 32, after 11 seasons as a professional racer, NOEMI CANTELE now dreams are about raising a family, living a "normal" life, and establihing the obligation of a femal team for all the Pro Tour teams 

WRITER: CHRISTIAN GIORDANO
June 26, 2013

Noemi Cantele has had a career worthy of framing, just like her last national team jersey worn at the 2013 UCI Road World Championships in Florence -- her thirteenth, and last one. So it was her “Race of the Season” since BePink's training camp in Cervinia. A failed goal as an individual for Noemi, but she contributed, as Italian national teammate to the precious bronze medal for Rossella Ratto behind the “Dutch Cannibal” Marianne Vos and Emma Johansson of Sweden.

Rossella has followed in her brothers' footsteps, Daniele Ratto and (on her mother's side) Enrico Peruffo, both professional riders. Twenty last October 19, she has a bright future ahead of her. In contrast, Noemi is 32, an age at which the "head" still counts, if anything, even more. For this and many more reasons, she has decided to say enough is enough, and doing it now that she's still at the top of the sport. Noemi Cantele explained why she has taken this not-so-difficult decision.

- What did you take inside?

NC -- "After the Olympics in London 2012, which led to me not the result I was hoping for (a medal, ed), I looked forward, which could be my next goals to continue to work for as I always have, with fierce determination. For each athlete, it is very important to have goals. And for me even more now, because I have always worked in this way, so focused. And while I was looking forward, apart from 2013 UCI Road World Championships in Tuscany, it could be another Olympics (Rio 2016, ed). But because of the choices I've made since the beginning of my career, I've also always wanted to study because I have always seen sporting career as a stage of life, not as my whole life itself. Inside, I felt ready to close that phase of my life and to begin another one."

- Your path has been and is a quite unique, both as an athlete and as a student-model. Despite your sports and academic achievements, was it also a limit for your racing career?

"Definitely. Because I was studying and so I was conditioned, in part, in my training sessions, I did not participate from the beginning to the Giro or other long stage races because I had to study or to attend my college lessons. But, in retrospect, the fact that I studied with a so-great commitment it allowed me to be who I am now. I do not know, maybe yes, it was also a limit as a sports professional, but at the end you have to consider not only the athlete but the whole person you are and the one you want to become."

- You've graduated, with honors, in economics and business. The cycling – or, more generally, the sports environment - begins to narrow layers? Or do you think that will be the area of your new career?

"I'd like to stay in the sport, or in a sporting environment. I found a beautiful group in BePink, the team which I raced for this season and that allowed me to give something also to the younger girls. Dalia Muccioli won the Italian road championship this year. She is just 20 years old (Dalia was born May 20, 1993, ed) and I know that it was important for so young racers having a teammate of my experience. We trained together in Livigno in May 2013, and if I look back to when I was twenty I had always eyes to the more experienced girls of the field, who had won so major races. This kind of contribution gives me a lot of satisfaction. In fact, that Sunday when Dalia Muccioli won her Italian road championships title, the first thing I said, although I was there in my house (due to injury, ed), it was as if I had won it, too, because of that kind of satisfaction. Seeing a girl, because in the end she is still very young, that she would like to thank you because she observed your behaviour in the race or the way you train and maybe doing a workout together with you is useful to her...

For me, there are stages of life. And it's just knowing how to listen and understand yourself and even have the courage to change, because for me it would be really simple to have another contract next season, keep racing and maybe make another road world championship assault. But first of all I want to live to 100% every stage of life and I realized that – maybe - I do not want to live the cyclist-life to 100% anymore."

- What kind of signs did you get?

"The increasing difficulty of packing the suitcases, and having to go away from home so many days of the year. It is the kind of thing that weighed on me more and more in my last race season. Training is part of me, it has always been and it likely always will be. I'm fine physically when I go biking, so I do not think that I'll hang the bike up on the nail right here, right now. I'm not sick by bike, it's my life-passion. I had it since I was three years old, so I do not think that it will change in the future. It's a sort of a lifestyle for me, my way of life. The sportsman, generally speaking, has a fascinating life, at least seen from outside, because you can always stay out of the house, you can travel around the world, to see so many places that maybe a “normal” person who makes a chore cannot do in a whole lifetime. But in the end, maybe, I need just a little of that 'normality'. And I think that there are so many athletes who have decided to stop just because of that: they lacked that kind of "normal" life, if you know what I mean”.

- What did you miss as a woman before as a professional athlete?

"I do not miss anything, really. It's just that by tomorrow I'd like to start building something different. Maybe a family, I want to stop my professional cycling for that, too. There are also many female athletes who have children and then continue their career. But thats not the same kind of model of the family that I had with my parents, who were close to me in growth, and that I want to build it up... That is what I want for my children one day."

- In all this got to do even the ticking of the biological clock?

"No, definitely. I was given a sort of deadline by myself. Until maybe a couple of years ago, I never would have thought of, and then is one thing that matures within you. No one can know it in your place."

- A desire to go home, then a sort of stability... The Italian social and political situation certainly does not encourage this kind of choices...

“In the end we must also invent something, right? Having had the opportunity to travel all over the wqorld and stay abroad for a long time, living other realitise also gives you many stimuli that I'd like to take and apply in Italy. This is my country and Italy is the place where I want to live and raise my children, if I'll ever have any... One day I'd like that every Italian Pro Tour team also had a women's team. It would really be an evolution, you bet it. I realize that perhaps the Italian cycling tradition, precisely, is "tradition" and that we were too far behind. It's obvious."

- Back to the whole, and not just in cycling...

"Yeah, it is clear that in these days the majority of Italian cycling big names are in foreign teams. Indeed, the best Italian riders go to foreign teams. So a few questions about why it happens I'd do... I wish that it were possible to recreate something attractive for Italians, not just in sports but also, generally, in the whole world of work."

- A women's Italian Pro Tour team is a reality yet so far away?

"In the gruppo(Italian term for 'field' or the French 'peloton', ed) between us riders we talk about it and we think the UCI (International Cycling Association, ed) ProTour teams should “oblige” the men's ones to also own a women's team. In terms of budget, as they are now, their effort would be really ridiculous. On the other hand, when you see a world-renowned superstar as the Dutch Marianne Vos, the strongest female racer in the world, her nation has done everything to keep her in their country. Rabobank, which is no longer called Rabobank team (but Rabobank-Giant Liv, ed), immediately opened a women's team. Rabobank as sponsor has left the men's cycling for all matters of doping that there have been, however, the same Rabobank is sponsoring the Marianne Vos' team. If you have athletes at the highest level you have to protect them, you have to try in every way to help them. And to ensure that the more skilled young prospects who are now starting to appear in the cycling world have a chance for the future."

- Marianne Vos, however, belongs to another reality. In the Netherlands, cycling and skating are the national sports. And so a champion "move" also from the economic point of view.

"Yes, that's true, but in the beginning Vos was not yet the same big name as 'Vos' is by now. Marianne has become a Dutch national idol since she won the Olympics two years ago in London. Now, also from the psychological point of view, she has become so strong that just the simple fact of race to her side... it's as if you started already defeated. But she won the Olympic gold medal and she entered into history. Look at Vincenzo Nibali by now: he was a very strong rider even two or three seasons ago. He had won a Vuelta a España(in 2010, ed), he had arrived on the podium twice in the Giro d'Italia (third in 2010, second in 2011, ed.) That kind of success make you a professional superstar in an absolute sense. In the Italian female cycling scene there are lots of top-level athletes, we have won a lot all over the world and yet we are at the same level where we were five, six years ago. And you should think about what's wrong in this kind of stuff."

- Did your life changed after your time-trial silver and bronze road race medals in the 2009 UCI Road World Championshipsin Mendrisio? And if so, howdid it change?

"Definitely. It has changed, for my part, in the sense of awareness, understanding that the medals in the world give you that value as a professional rider. But it is just a medal, a material thing, it gives you that extra-value that you're an athlete at the highest level. Fullstop. I am best known, in certain situations cycling fans even recognize me, for me it was a passage, a goal, and I achieved it."

- Is it so hard, for a man, to train women? How have you found with men team manager, and specifically with Italian national team manager Edoardo Salvoldi? And what about with your female teammates and opponents?

"I've always had men in the role of team manager, so I can not say how it would be if I had a woman in that role. In the last year I knew better Sigrid Corneo, who is the wife of my BePink team manager (Walter Zini, ed) and occasionally she also plays the role of sporting director. She was also a rider in her past and from this point of view you feel more understood, as a woman and as a professional athlete, because she got through the same kind of experiences. So she can understand women, the way they feel and behave, and what it means to do a sport so hard. Compared to a man it is a different kind of experience, because, you know, there are obvious gender dynamics that only we know, is not it? I realize that team managers who have made a difference in my career they were the ones who were more 'capable' to understand women. It is a matter of sensitivity, it is a bit as the relationship between man and woman, it goes beyond the sport. It is far more than the ability to understand the women in their inner life, which is a continuous challenge every day."

- What changes in the way you relate?

"We are more aggressive, more determined than our collegues men. Riders of the men's teams are more friendly, there is more camaraderie, between them. We have a capacity to suffer more developed, it is a genetic 'fact', and if you want also not so-much rewarded. Vincenzo Nibali won the Giro last year and from a financial point of view, he won a reward a little bit 'exaggerated' (297,671 euros for Astana, the Kazakh team with which he won in 2013, ed). The total award of the female Giro is about 600-700 euros, to be shared with the teammates. And building up for a Giro - even though logically the miles are not the same and the number of stages is not the same - it is the commitment that is the same. We really need an almost masochistic determination, if you compare our motivations to their ones."

- Had it an impact on your decision to quit?


"Yes, it had. Why cannot live only for cycling. At some point in everyone's life, it is logical and conscientious that you have to understand that you have to focus and dedicate yourself in something else. And then later you start to do it, the harder it is. There is also a lot of competition in the job's world, and not just in cycling, especially for me because I did not choose to be part of a sports team of the armed forces."

- Why did you make that choice?


"Because then it wasn't allowed being in a sports team and - at tghe same toime - signing a professional contract abroad. There was a sort of 'release' this year, and to Giorgia Bronzini - who was enrolled in the body of Forest Guard - was permitted to sign for a foreign team (the British-Wiggle Honda, ed.). Back then, I thought there were more opportunities for me to grow, and so I chose that kind of pattern. I had studied, so then I thought it ('amateur' sport in the armed forces) would not be for me the solution for the future, for my post-cycling life." 

- Let's talk about your professional experiences abroad. How and why you choose them?


"I started with Bigla, a Swiss team. I live (in Arcisate, Varese, ed) very close to southern Switzerland border, so it was a very simple choice for me. Even so, from the economic point of view, I was an employee of the main company, neither the team sponsor nor the club. It was an important thing for me at that time, because that kind of agreement in Italy did not exist then. I spent five years with them, then when the company closed, I had the opportunity to race in the U.S. HTC, the former High Road team, and I sized the day." 

- Over there did you meet another world?


"Yes, because there was a 'macho-man' kind of society, even tough it was a women's team. And we had, from the point of view of technical, managerial and organizational perspective, the same standard of men. In that team there were athletes who then have grown a lot, but also because there was a great support by managers and sporting staff, too. To them it was normal to get tested in the wind tunnel for women, too. They rented the wind tunnel for men-riders, so they rented also for women-riders. It was not a major cost for the team. If they would did just for women's team, costs would be unsustainable."

- Doping issues: let's face it, it's impossible not to talk about it.

"I think it is all about an ethical choice - as individual, I mean. For me there is not even a question, because that is not what I was taught. For me it was really important to have a family so close with me, because I have always confronted with them on this issues. Because it was clear that there was the matter."

- Since in the youth ranks you will hear the same refrain - if you want to continue bike racing you have to take substances... Did you have had this kind of perception in your 'teens'?


"Fortunately not. This kind of thing was more present between men's environment than in women's one, but if you belong to that world, and you 'live' in it, this kind of things is obvious that we speak about..."

- Have you ever compete against riders who were previously much less strong than you and that instead, the year after, you could not longer stand behind them? 


"Yes, I have. But I can only speak for myself, for what is my own reality. One may suspect a lot of things, but if there is no evidence they are only words. No facts. Nothing."

- The biological passport is pushing cycling in a new, different direction or the new game is always the same old game: cops and robbers?


"Doping is always ahead antidoping. It always has been like that, and it will ever be the same. There are always those who want to be more clever than others, no? People who don't respect opponents, or the rules. But the heartening thing is that the 'too smart' ones are becoming less and less, and that they are stopped. What would be appropriate is that cheaters had exemplary punishments."

- How could serve, as a deterrent, radiation, riders banned for life? 

"Maybe team managers could not sign those who were tested positive during their career. A team, a sports director, comrades: how did they really can not know?
"Some teams have strict drugs policies and internal controls. But you cannot control your athletes 24 hours a day. I think it is all about ethical choice. If you grew up with certain sporting values , you do not even occur to do that. In fact, at the end they are always the same ones that fall for doping."

- For many of them, however, professional cycling is their whole life.


"You can also flip the matter. If a professional rider at the end of the Giro will earn two thousand euros, I challenge anyone to take drugs for two thousand euros. The economic rationale then becomes a double edged sword. Doping in women's cycling races is less than this because, from a mere economic point of view, you could not even afford it, really. If one looks at the figures that, according to the media, how much it would cost to be followed by certain 'doctors', it would be impossible. When people are talking about doping in men's cycling, sometimes I would say, ah, please, lower their salaries, then we'll see if anything changes. If for an amateur the primary goal is to become professional, it is because in the end you see what is the economical environment and its figures... ".


- But this does not explain why, among the amateurs, there are those who dope to win a ham or a sausage in Sunday's races.
"That's true, from this point of view I could not explain it. You're right". 

- As athlete and women, what bothers you more about how the media deal with women's sport? 

"In recent years much has changed about a woman who ride bike. Athletically speaking, there is no longer the stereotype that a women on a bike is not nice to see. We are athletes, like a swimmer or a lifter of weights. And surely doping is a scourge, a plague. Because many times, and surely not for the fans, 'the cyclist is doped'."

- When the 'next Paola Pezzo', cross-country mountain bike racer who won Atlanta 1996 Olympic gold-medal, will be able to think just about her races, without having to worry about her body too revealing? 

"Maybe that open neckline has attracted a lot of fans. In the end, somehow you have to make while talking, is not it? If that was the pretext and in the end it was spoken about, that's fine, because there was nothing so out of the norm. Maybe it was pretty hot, I do not know. It also happened to me to ride with an open jersey, and you could see my sports-bra, and so what? Maybe some fans snapped a picture. Who cares. It was a series of coincidences, Paola will not even thought about it, she was focused on the race, I do not remember. You media told the story like that, for an athlete these are not the main thing, it is not so important, but in the end are those things that remains. Shame on you. It's sad if everyone remembers Paola Pezzo not because of she won the Olympics in Atlanta 1996, maybe people do not even remember that she won gold medal in MTB, but they remember that she was the woman-rider who had... "

- As an athlete and as a woman, doesn't this kind of things bother you?

"It's all about what and how you decide to tell a story, that's what people remember. If that day or the day after on the front page there was that picture, people will eventually remember those things. In that Olymic Games Italian riders also won other two gold medals with Antonella Bellutti (individual pursuit, ed) and Andrea Collinelli (4000m individual pursuit, ed), but no one remembers them, even tough they did a great performance.

We talk about this matters in our meetings with ACCPI (the Italian Association of Professional Cyclists, ed), we talk about how you can improve or do not improve. We have made proposals of all kinds and one to the organizers of the men's Giro was: is there a time-trial in Milan? Well, let's make a time-trial for women's Giro, too. Let's see that there are also women-riders, maybe most of people even do not know. It's a kind of basic-marketing rules. Then I laughed and jokingly I said, 'Guys, here we also have to win something big and then open the jersey zipper up a little more, so maybe...'."

You have to tell stories so sensational. Because, in the end, let's take Federica Pellegrini's case: she is a world-known swimmer, a superstar, but all the people know and talk about is gossip. Just gossip... "

- Don't you that in the long term it is an own goal for you as athletes, as women, for the whole cycling (or sports) environment?

"I do not know, everyone makes their own choices. I have always been very private about my private life. I always thought it was right - and a my right - to protect it, just because I believe that there is just this part of me, as an athlete, I'd like to told to the media, top the fans. Then there are also athletes who feel so valued in other ways, gossip, advertising and so on. For me this is not a requirement, then, that was my choice."

- No regrets?


"In my career I have missed, maybe, some centimeters. For example, Salzburg 2006: UCI Road World Championships, I really missed the podium because of an inch. And for what you say, shit!, just one more a pedal stroke, one more, and it could make all the difference in the world. Even at Stuttgart 2007: that day I was perhaps stronger than I was at Mendrisio 2009. Over there, things really did not go as I expected. Unfortunately, you can not go back, you always have to go forward and look ahead, right? In the end what matters is how you feel inside. If I looked back, before I started racing, I watch a little Naomi who admired great athletes, their achievements and maybe in the very deep of her heart she wanted to emulate them, and I realize that I did it; I had my career, a great cycling career at the highest level. And I am satisfied."

- Have you stopped to take the bike in your bedroom, like you did as a child?


"No, not really. I did it for so long... Even now I do. Sometimes I bring my bike into my home because I like to look at it. I know that Valentino Rossi think the same for his bike, or Fernando Alonso for his F1: the machine become a part of you. You lives in symbiosis with your bike. Most of us riders 'talk' with the bike. Because, through "her", you express yourself, what you have deep inside you, your inner strength. And some days it is your friend, some days you hate it."

- Blame your grandfather Raffaele, then. Would you like to thank him?

"Yes, yes, for sure. My grandfather was perhaps the one that conveyed his truly, visceral passion to me and my brother Adriano - because my granny loved riding bicycle (as her daddy 'Peppo', also former amateur, ed). He gave us our first racing bikes. I was three years old. It's a strange thing that you receive as a gift a racing bike at a so-early age."

- However, it had the mini-fenders...

"Yes, and it was amaranth. I will always remember when my grandfather gave me my first little bike. It was a third-hand one. And he gave me a blank check to pay for it. A strange kind of thing, isn't it? He did not went him to be going to pay for it. I still remember that check and I bought my first little bike. It cost 500 thousand lire (200 pounds, ed). He wanted to help us – my elder brother and me – and our passion. Have grandparents like him. He was so crucial."

txt by CHRISTIAN GIORDANO

NOEMI CANTELE's ID

Born: Varese (Italy), July 17, 1981

Height and weight: 5.6 ft x 128 lb (1,71 m x 59 kg)

Specialist: time trial

Juniores:

• 1998-2001 Ju Sport Gorla Minore

Professional Teams:

• 2002-2003 Acca Due O
• 2004 UCT Montebelluna
• 2005-2009 Bigla (Svizzera)
• 2010 Team HTC (USA)
• 2011 Garmin-Cervélo (USA)
• 2012-2013 BePink

National Team

• 1998-1999 Italia juniores
• 2002-2013 Italia

Palmarès:

• 2 Italian juniores championship (1998, 1999), 
• Giro della Toscana (2007), 
• road race Italian juniores championship (2011),
• 2 time trial Italian championship (2009, 2011);
• World Championship: bronze medal juniores road race (Verona 1999), silver medal time trial (Mendrisio 2009), bronze medal road race (Mendrisio 2009)