It’s not a short step from the descent of the “dead gypsy” in the Benevento area, the seventh stage of a dramatic Giro d’Italia which ended with a fall that put her in a coma, at the Olympic Velodrome in Rio de Janeiro where yesterday she won the gold medal in the standing kilometer on the first day of the para-cycling world championships. It’s not short at all, there is a life in between, there are years of fears, of small steps, of conquests, of commitment, of tenacity in which Claudia Cretti took back her sport but above all she took back her life. The Italian born 29 years ago in Costa Volpino, in the province of Bergamo, yesterday not only won the first world gold of the Italian expedition but also set the world record in her category by stopping the chronometer in time of 1’12″028 at almost 50 kilometers per hour on average. “I’m really happy. I set the record in the standing km which, among other things, is an Olympic specialty… Thanks everyone!” the new world champion commented excitedly on her social networks, having already won a bronze in the pursuit last year, a silver in the scratch and another bronze in the omnium.
The Fiamme Azzurre athlete dominated the test by lining up very high level opponents: behind her the New Zealander Nicole Murray (1’13″619) and the Argentine Analia Mariela Delgado (1’14″629). And his first world gold, a milestone that comes in his new life, one that he basically had to start again after his fall in the Giro Rosa in 2017 when he ended up on the asphalt at over 70 mph. It was July 7th eight years ago and it all seemed over. Three weeks in a coma, two complicated head operations and then a long rehabilitation to start doing everything again, even the simplest things: from his first steps, to eating, to drinking, to the words he no longer remembered. An infinite, very hard climb, the kind that doesn’t allow you to imagine the end, where it never gets over the top. But no. In Claudia’s head, who had no intention of giving up her life, a phrase continued to “circulate”. Alex Zanardi who she had met at the CONI in Rome during an awards ceremony: “Don’t look at the half you don’t have but the one you have left…” the Olympic handbike champion had told her when describing the crash in the Formula Indy which took away both his legs.
A “motto” that she translated, with Orobic pragmatism, into “do the best you can with what you have…”. And from there she started again with the fundamental help of her family who in all these years has always encouraged and supported her even when starting to cycle again seemed impossible but thinking, rightly, that this was the path to her rebirth. Slowly forward, small but constant progress, so much so that she returned to cycling “seriously”, to compete as a Paralympic athlete with the “Born to Win” Women’s Team. She, who had already won a silver medal in the pursuit at the junior world championships, arrived in the Paralympic national team in the C4 category, the one where athletes with mild disabilities and the effects of brain trauma compete. And she never gave up, she never stopped. From sprint to sprint until returning to compete in the elite category a few months ago. Once again among the professionals, a dream that seemed impossible and which instead brought her back to compete among the “Pros”. A fixation. To get back to where he dreamed, he moved everything he could move and, thanks to the Federation and the national coach Paolo Addesi, he found the availability of Top Girls Fassa Bortolo. A challenge within a challenge. Which allowed her, following the example of a couple of French Paralympic athletes she had met at the Paris Games, to raise the bar of her preparation in anticipation of the Brazilian Paralympic World Championships in Rio. And so it went. This is how the gold in the world championship arrived. Which is not just a medal but worth a life.