Multi athlete is better.
The reflection starts from the victory of the cyclocross world championship obtained by Pidcock, who after having conquered the last XC Olympics, confirms his absolute value. But in addition to this name there is the already known Van der Poel and many other riders. Men and women able to extricate themselves simultaneously in the different disciplines.
HISTORY
Once upon a time, a long time ago, a very good biker on fat wheels who one day decided to try his hand at road tests, his name was… Cadel Evans, or Miguel Martinez or Davide Cioni, or Peter Sagan.
Once the transition from one discipline to another was a definitive change, whether it was from MTB to road or vice versa. In those cases the athlete focused his attention on a discipline abandoning, at least from a competitive point of view, that of origin. Probably, to dictate these unique choices were the technical and duration differences of the disciplines, or the less scientific knowledge that was present in the training plans and in the dietary ones, or even a methodological approach different from the current one. The fact is that it was unthinkable to see riders capable of skillfully dividing between road, xc and cyclocross, as has been happening in the last few years.
THE PRESENT
In recent years the belief has been questioned, deeply rooted in competition at the highest levels, that it was impossible to be polyvalent and capable of excelling at the same time in different specialties. As a trainer I have always admired multidisciplinarity and the revolution of thought behind these results intrigues me a lot. Since, if on the one hand it is established that in some cases we are talking about absolute champions, it is equally true that these are competing with other champions of the same level, who however devote all their attention to a single type of race. This novelty places us in front of a reflection that can take two different directions, namely that in some competitions it is possible to leave the classic scheme and use different training tools, or that all the analyzes made by us professionals, with load periods, repeated, and planning, are of little use. I opt for the first analysis, not so much to defend the category but above all because I believe that to get ready for more events, often different from each other, it is necessary to plan the season even more carefully, also using new technologies such as watt meters. , food analysis and the study of DNA, which we will discuss later.
Races that are only apparently different from each other?
In reality these athletes plan the events in a precise way, participate in a targeted race number, with the aim of winning them. But apart from the training plans, at the basis of these multidisciplinarity there are often also some similarities between the competitions in which they are protagonists.
If we analyze the modern cyclocross and MTB competitions, we will see that the similarities are many, the type of effort is essentially the same, the technical skills underlying the MTB are greater than those of the CX, even if traveling on mud and ice with those wheels certainly implies great dexterity. However, the question of street remains, how is it possible to be competitive in Val di Sole and in Flanders or in a stage of the tour?
The instinctive answer could be that it is impossible, then by trying to better analyze how the race of a great classic develops you can find some similarities to start from. In fact, an XC race takes place in 1h30 ', a period in which the rider always travels at threshold rhythms, with raises in which values beyond the threshold are also reached. If we try to imagine the dynamics of an online race, we will see that very often the most excited phases are in the final, for a long time the troop travels compact and the leaders covered. So, in addition to a solid basic resistance, the qualities that are needed are often similar, a great physical and mental capacity to withstand rhythms between the threshold and outside the threshold and that explosiveness useful for the raises and the end of the race.
This does not detract from the qualities of the athletes who manage to be so multifaceted, since if there are some physical and technical qualities that unite the disciplines, there is still the great mental strength that is needed to be able to be competitive in different worlds and an ability to adapt. out of the ordinary to get off a modern MTB and get on a very special one, with very different heights, geometric patterns and structures.
