The 1996 and 2000 Mountain Bike champion: “We had men’s clothing, unwatchable, I launched the first women’s items: new shapes and sequins. In the USA they went crazy”
T wo Olympic gold medals in mountain biking who are like children, “it’s impossible to say which of the two you love more”. A fierce determination in the body of a blonde girl born to play sports. In Bosco Chiesanuova Paola Pezzo started cross-country skiing as a child on the doctor’s advice, “maybe she gets hungry, she’s too skinny like that”, and at fifteen she was already in the national team with Stefania Belmondo and Gabriella Paruzzi, “then they left me out but the reason was never understood, I was disappointed, my parents didn’t have the possibility of taking me to train on the glaciers, my father was a bricklayer, my mother was a janitor in the colony”. We owe it to Peppo, the town dentist, if Paola had a second competitive life in mountain biking. “When the first climber came out he gave it to me: you’re strong uphill, you’ll see that you’ll make your way. I had to learn the downhill technique. There was only one problem.”