The wingman: teacher of life

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There were five left. Cesare knew who his last companions were on that incredible day and he could only fear them.

In the escape you are mercenaries: the team stops being the one printed on the shirt and begins to coincide with the men you have at your side, but as soon as the goal is victory, again all enemies. They had just passed the flamme rouge and in that last kilometer the tension was sky high.

It was not just any stage, a few moments did not separate them from a goal like the others: winning there meant consecrating oneself among the gods of Cycling. Behind there, beyond those last curves, was Pinerolo, where in 1949 Coppi raised his arms to the sky after yet another epochal clash with Bartali, the rival of all time, in a "man-eating stage", perhaps the best stage of the history of the Giro.

Everyone knew the implicit value of that victory. They had been looking at each other for a while, but now time was running out: a few moments and someone would leave, trying to anticipate the others at the finish line. Last corner. Attacks Brambilla, the sprint begins: those seconds begin when everything becomes black, out of focus. A single thought resounds: push, push, push.

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The legs burn - a stage like this destroys them - but Cesare knows he has to give one more push, and then another. He no longer hears anything except the din caused by the inciting screams of the flagship through the radio. Little is missing.

One more effort: he knows he no longer has energy inside, but he has to bring out the impossible, because there the possible is not enough. Look up. There is no one between him and the finish line: he is in the lead. Last rides, the legs stop, the right hand leaves the handlebars and rises, exultant. He had been the fastest, the strongest. He had won.

For the first time in his career, at 31, he could raise his arms to the sky, but not for the victory of a teammate. The victory this time was all his. Cesare Benedetti had conquered Pinerolo.

It may seem like a paradox, but there is no sport in the world where the team matters more than in cycling.

There is no other sport where athletes seek within themselves the deepest and most hidden remnants of that energy that has been converted into pedaling in the one hundred and fifty, two hundred kilometers already covered.

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Cycling is a pact, a contract made of words, of looks between eight human beings. In this pact the majority gives, knowing that they will not receive anything back. Also in this we recognize the beauty of the bike: there is a very high degree of gratuitousness in the relationship between captain and wingman.

The wingman knows that he must give everything for his captain, the captain knows that from his wingman he will also receive the soul, if necessary.

It is a relationship of deep mutual trust.

If the captain wins, the team wins.

However, even for a wingman there comes that moment when the team tells him: “Go!”. Maybe some
it happens many times, but for others the opportunities are few, and therefore the object of dreams.
Cesare, on May 23, 2019, heard that "Go!" and he went, faster than all: the dream was finally reality.

Cesare Benedetti (3 August 1987, Rovereto) made his debut as a professional in 2010 with the German team NetApp (at the time Continental team), which in 2016 changed its name to Bora-Hansgrohe. He gets his first victory on the occasion of the twelfth stage of the Giro d'Italia 2019, dedicated to Fausto Coppi (Cuneo-Pinerolo), beating his teammates in a sprint.

Article The wingman: teacher of life From Sports born.

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