A new face in the team for the 2022 campaign, Eleonora joins after a strong and consistent junior career where she picked up back-to-back Italian road race titles alongside back-to-back European road race silver medals and World Championships top tens. In fact, throughout her two years Eleonora claimed 21 top ten finishes in 22 race days – a very impressive stat!
Hailing from Corridonia in Italy, Eleonora got into the sport through her family and mostly in part due to her older brother and sister. As a youngster she would often go out and watch them ride and compete in local races, and from there Eleonora had her heart set on being a cyclist. Getting her own bike, she knew that she had made the right decision and fell in love with the thrill of being out in nature, exploring new places in her region and of course, the competition.
As she grew older Eleonora’s enjoyment of the sport only increased, with cycling her sole past time and hobby. She tried other sports but she “wasn’t great” at them so stuck to two wheels. Combining road and cyclocross as her main facets of the sport, Eleonora did practice track but that was “at a very low level” and just to improve her skills on the bike for when she was competing on the road or in the field.
Making the transition full time to the road and stepping up to the World Tour as a youngster can be a daunting prospect but the pragmatic and feisty Eleonora instead sees it as a “great opportunity” and wants to take everything in her stride. At Team dsm-firmenich she thinks that she has found a home to grow as not only as a rider but as a person and wants to learn as much as possible from those around her.
She will have some friendly faces with fellow Italian and one-year-older Francesca [Barale] in the team to offer some support and guidance. The pair raced together at Europeans and World Championships in 2021 and have stayed in contact with each other since – something Eleonora depicts as “beautiful.”
The self-anointed “brave”, “nice” and “studious” Eleonora will be rubbing shoulders with her idol Elisa Balsamo in the bunch throughout the coming years, something that she is looking forward to, admiring Elisa for her mentality to racing and never-give-up attitude, something that Eleonora wants to prescribe to herself.
Away from her life on two wheels, she enjoys spending time with her family at their home and going for long walks with her dogs. If not, she’s occupied with looking after her four cats and in the brief downtime from all the animals, Eleonora likes cooking a delicious meal or getting her nose stuck into a good book while chilling on the couch.
