Oldani: “These have been days of fantastic feelings and sensations”
Stefano Oldani made his stagiaire debut with the Polartec-Kometa in an event of great importance for the formation as the Tour of Hungary and in it the Italian cyclist made a great performance at a collective and individual level. The Colpack rider brought work and attitude to the race and discovered a different sports project in the first person, which he enjoyed very much.
“The possibility of coming to the team came when Ivan Basso and Dario Andriotto showed me their interest in having me on the team and explained the fantastic project of the Polartec-Kometa,” he recalls. “It’s been days of fantastic feelings and sensations. Fantastic on the bike, with my teammates, with the team staff members and with the technical and managerial staff. It was just a spectacular experience,” he adds.
Born in Milan in January 1998, the Oldani cyclist is another of those cases of future cyclists born of family passions. In this case, by his brother Matteo. “My older brother started competing and that’s when I got close to that world. I was six years old,” explains the Lombardy rider, who already knows what it is like to be a national transalpine champion as a junior in the time trial category.
Oldani, in his experience with the Polartec-Kometa in Hungary, was instrumental in Matteo Moschetti’s victory in the third stage, second in line. At the end of that day, some individual skirmishes tried to avoid the volata. At the edge of the last kilometer, it literally emptied out to end up with a rival accelerating.
“At that stage the team worked very well and the feeling that Matteo transmitted to us was magnificent. When the CCC corridor started, I immediately thought that this small gap could become very dangerous. I gave it my all to fill the gap and facilitate that sprint that in the end was victorious,” he recalls.
In the penultimate stage, the toughest for a first-class mountain pass with its summit 30 kilometers from the end, Oldani fought to enter the group of the illustrious. He was close, but from that stage he finished as the best classified of the foundation’s team, in the 24th to 3:24th position of the Italian Manuel Belletti. “In that fourth stage I had good feelings about the bike, but it wasn’t perfect. I still have a lot of work to do to improve my performance in these situations.
Asked about races and riders he likes, he doesn’t opt for a particular race in the U23 category (“I like hard races”, he says), but he does like two cyclists: “From the past, my favourite rider is Marco Pantani. And of the present time, Vincenzo Nibali”.
(automatic translation, sorry for mistakes)
