All roads in Slovenia lead to Ljubljana.
Ljubljana is my home.
Today was supposed to be a day of celebration, the arrival of the Tour of Slovenia into its capital city. By coincidence, in Ljubljana it is also Pride weekend, and young people arrive at Kongresni Square in expressive outfits, draped in flags. They are full of liberated and resilient joy, an emotion which has accidentally collided with the deep and poignant sadness radiating from the starting lineup of the Tour of Slovenia just across the park. The day is one of mourning in the peloton, as everyone takes a moment of silence for their colleague Gino Mäder, who died yesterday. Bahrain Victorious lined up at the start in front, brave just for continuing on. The men take off their helmets. At the rear of the peloton, cyclists from Tudor Pro Cycling, many of whom knew Gino well, crowd together and hide their faces. Today is not a day for interviews.
At four in the morning, I woke up and began to write hoping the act would sublimate some of the grief, grief which is itself a small imitation of the grief felt by these men who have to get on their bikes and ride today and the grief felt by Gino’s friends and family. No one, I think, quite knows how to react to grief, a visceral, bodily emotion, or with the grieving, who are in such a state where they walk among us in a different world. Nobody wants to be reminded by those grieving that all life will come to an end. Overnight in Slovenia, fans of Gino and fans of cycling, took to the hills and painted Gino’s name in giant letters along the climbs outside of Ljubljana and the finish in Kobarid.
Gino, Gino, Gino.
The fans are not alone. On the slopes of the Kolovrat climb, Simon Pellaud of Tudor Pro Cycling thrashes forward, practically throwing the bike. He gaps the peloton, which is mostly still together with 45 or so kilometers to go. Pellaud winds around the tight bends, desperately, but then slows. When the camera alights on him, he makes a heart with his hands. He points to the sky. It is a moving tribute made with the body in action. Pellaud is caught, and those in the peloton console him while moving around him. They are breathing hard, probably harder than they would in other circumstances.
At this point, Samuele Zoccarato is still ahead, survivor of a long breakaway. Colin Stussi, another Swiss, from Team Vorarlberg, goes next, along with Tudor’s Alois Charrin. These are fruitless attacks, but they are not, at this stage in the race with one more trip up Kolovrat, supposed to be race-winning moves. They are personal offerings of despair, made in away only these men could make them. They are powerful and raw.
It feels almost sick to watch and to write about bike racing at this time. On the descent, it feels doubly sick, especially as there is a crash, thankfully harmless, of four riders in a corner. Soon there will be the stable relief of the valley before they climb up again and descend again.
In the valley on the way to the finish, we stopped the car to look at the beautiful, translucent water of the Soča river, kissed by the fronds of trees, guarded over by the towering foothills that preclude the even more towering Julian Alps. Parked in the same nook was an ambulance. But it was a happy occasion. The workers were smoking cigarettes and enjoying the view. They said to me in Slovene, “It’s beautiful, yes?” And I said, yes, it is.
Butterflies, in orange, yellow, and blue, crowded and lingered by puddles, unafraid of me or the men in equally fluorescent colors. In this moment, I was so happy to be alive, and so were those two men who surely were more familiar with death than others. Sometimes, also, in sadness, irrational and primordial, you think the butterflies mean more than they perhaps do, as though there are forces at work far larger than any of us. Maybe there are.
As I said before, the sky over every river in Slovenia is different. In the sky over the river Soča, the clouds are shredded and light passes through them, in contrary to the humid air. Charrin, the Tudor rider beneath that sky, is bridging, slowly, to Zoccarato. The castle over Kobarid with its stone colonnade watches indifferently as somewhere, in the folds of the hills, the two men set off together. Zoccarato needs Charrin. He’s been out all day. He needs time to take in some of that thick air. He needs Charrin’s protection from the wind. But whatever Charrin is able to provide is not enough. The peloton, now reduced, catches them in the deep, green valley.
They wait for the next climb. No one can make a move. They watch. Miguel of Kern Pharma tries first. 25 kilometers to go. The others bide their time on the long, loops of the road. He will be caught, too. He is. Next is another Swiss, Matteo Badilatti of Q36.5, who attacks, another attack of devotion, this one more dangerous, but hese are the acts of the grieving and they do not have to make sense. They should be interpreted as real and memorable testaments to the power of solidarity inherent in sport, despite all its pretenses of competition. But Badilatti’s attempt does prove consequential. There are splits now.
It’s a total shakeup. Ulissi, Bora’s Aleotti, dropped. Zana leads with Paul Double from Human Powered Health and they are alone. Fortunato, Jesús Dávid Peña, Zana’s young, prodigious teammate, and Badilatti are lingering. For a long time it seems the door is shut to the others. Twelve seconds. It hurts for them. But everyone, I think, is hurting.
Zana leaves Double behind on the pale roads. He looks around but sees nothing. He gets out of the saddle to sprint to the top of the climb, weaving with each pull of the pedals. Badilatti, however, is not made of the stuff of giving up. He wants to catch Zana on the descent. He grits his teeth in search of Double, who separates them. Peña, Zana’s watchdog, won’t let him go, and in retaliation, he attacks, surpasses and bridges to Double.
Badliatti is powered by something deeper than exhaustion.
For now, it’s 14 kilometers of long, sick descending, a competition of untimely and unseemly risk taking. Ulissi. Fortunato. Double. Badilatti. They join forces in pursuit of the duo from Jayco AlUla, who are spaced slightly apart. It seems completely over, with the predicted winner in the right position in the hills above the Soča which carved them centuries ago. It is the same Soča which welled up, through the poems of Simon Gregorčič, nationalist sentiment in early 20th-century Slovenia; the same Soča, which is lined with blood from the Isonzo front during the First World War; the same Soča, which fell under the purview of counts from Venice, from the Holy Roman Empire, and later, the watchful eyes of the Habsburgs. It is the same Soča which, being so unnaturally beautiful, seems unfit to be the scene of centuries of bloodshed, scheming, and statecraft. And here in cycling, it is no different.
Things begin to fall apart on that final descent. First off, Peña is stuck in his little chainring. He’s spinning futilely, his bike robbed of its power, reduced to a kind of toy. Of all people, Ulissi, from far behind, comes back from the dead. He attacks and Fortunato lurches onto his wheel. There is no agreement anywhere in the so-called peloton, only desperate yearning for time, for victory. But then something horrible happens. The whole room gasps. Zana slips in a corner, tumbles over himself into the valley, into the soft, green earth, spooking a white horse, which seems again like some kind of supernatural interloper.
The press room is then silent, sick with dread, before the camera pans to see the Italian champion up on his feet, grabbing his bike, and running, cyclocross-style to the side of the road. Peña, his young constable, passes him. It’s likely he didn’t even see Zana, lost in his own drama. But Zana sees Peña. Peña, stuck in the little ring. The whole world is relieved Zana is okay. Nobody says anything about it, as though it would upset whatever evil spirit is presently hovering above cycling. Someone just mutters, crazy.
Zana is now with Fortunato and Ulissi. Everyone is on their absolute fucking, terrified limit. What was once closed is now wide open, open as the roads through the valley. Peña stuck in the little ring up front. Knackered Ulissi and Fortunato. Injured, but adrenaline-fueled Zana, who joins the other two, hanging in there, clinging on. No one wants to say what they’re thinking about the situation and the camera cuts away from the descent after Fortunato locks up and almost crashes in the exact same spot.
Peña is spinning like a hamster in its wheel, tragicomically stuck in that tiny chain ring, hoping the others aren’t too close because if it comes down to a sprint, he will lose. But soon the town of Kobarid emerges from the trees, and the roads urbanize and broaden. In his junior gearing, Peña holds on. He keeps looking back, sick with dread. Zana manages to hold on, too. When Peña rounds the finish line, he’s visibly relieved to see the town and just gasses it as fast as he can using what little power he’s got available to him. He makes it, but can’t even raise his hands in delight because he’s shaking so hard from the nerves and the cadence of around 130 it took for him to get that fast to begin with. When we see him slow in front of us, he’s smiling but smoothing his face with his hands. Zana, by some miracle, finishes in second — he will wear the green jersey heading from Vrhnika to Novo Mesto. Everyone in the press and among the staff is particularly relieved when the cyclists come in, one by one, some jittery and off-kilter.
Then those stragglers start to roll in. Simon Pellaud rides into the arms of his soigneur and Badilatti into the arms of his. Mohorič is dragged away by the Slovenian press and, stone-faced, he gives his interview. Children smile and eat ice cream. They beg for autographs and the cyclists oblige them. They hand them bidons. Everyone cheers. The sun is shining in Kobarid. The day has broken and the day will break tomorrow. Jesús Peña uncorks his champagne on the podium, covered in sweat and still sore.
Each of these little acts are reminders of the privilege of being here. On today, of all days, they are felt deeply by everyone under the tattered sky.
For Gino.
Kate, it had me brimming up, feeling all the emotion you felt while you wrote this article. Much respect to you Kate! For Gino❤️
Poignant writing. It really helps to read it because it shares the feeling of heaviness and loss and makes it more bearable.