Meet Fred Morini
Fred Morini training camp
Your chance to train with a champion! You will train alongside ex-professional Fred Morini. We will organise a week’s training where you will ride together with Morini and he will follow you in your progress and provide you with advice, information and encouragement.
Here’s a short interview with Fred taken in August 2006:
Fred Morini, from the Umbrian town of Città di Castello is just 30 years old but behind him he already has a life which is full of experience, a life which touched on glory and also overcame a serious accident.
Federico is his real Christian name and he has dedicated two thirds of his life to sport because he started cycling at seven years old.
What have been the stages of your cycling career?
“I raced in Italy up until the under 23s and also for the national team. I took part in the European championships in Sweden, was the reserve in the World championships in Holland and had many other experiences in Italy. After winning various races I finally won a contract as a professional in 2000 with the German team Gerolsteiner”.
How do you rate your performance?
“As a professional I think I left a good impression: I was 24. I won the third stage of the Austria Tour in the first two months of racing and I was always among the first five. I believe that it was from this that the Italian teams gained interest in me: “We must try to bring him home”, they used to tell me with a slap on the back. However I also raised interest in the Spain of the
“old” Indurain. In Germany I was the only Italian. For me however a downturn in my career was looming as and I can say it without resentment within a short space of time fate would hit me hard”.
Do you want to recap what happened?
“In December 2001 I had a terrible accident. I fell on a descent and suffered serious damage to the vertebra, spinal column and the medulla. I was diagnosed as being permanently paralysed but I didn’t accept this and after months and months of exercise I managed to get back on my feet and also back on my bike! From about mid 2004, with intensive therapy I cultivated the idea of going back to racing.
I had the energy, the determination, the desire to succeed: but the physical conditions were lacking. I returned to being a perfect man but not a perfect athlete. Sadness, tears, desperation: but my priority has to be my life, I told myself”.
So what did you decide to do?
“First of all I mentally finished the race. However I never stopped riding. A passion broke out inside of me to ride for wellbeing. A wellbeing made of hills, sounds, colours, perfumes and people of all over the world who put their trust in you. I like to help and give information to people who go cycling, exploring the areas of Italy which I have in my blood - the central area from the Tyrrhenian to the Adriatic – following the most relevant and also challenging stages of various races. In the last 2 years I’ve accompanied 50 groups: the last being the Tour de France – an appointment which for any cycling lover is legendary. The important thing is to live and experience the atmosphere … cycling tourism isn’t just sport and nature. It’s also and I’ll try to put it into simple terms, it’s the sharing of a world. In this sense the most receptive are the Anglo-Saxon cycling tourists”.
How do you plan to perfect this experience?
“At the moment I’m very attracted by the opportunity that Hotel Belvedere in Riccione has offered me. I met Marina thanks to a mutual friend. She is a dynamic woman. We got on well and from the start there was a great understanding between us. I like her way and how she manages things. Not only with great passion, but also with great organization. The Belvedere has the perfect structure with all the means necessary and Marina has the imagination and the right energy to drive it in the right direction. I’m happy to have met her”.
What plans have you got with Bikestyle Tours and the Hotel Belvedere?
“We’ve already outlined a general programme. For March 2007 we’ve planned a training camp with a detailed itinerary and programme and school of cycling in which I will teach you how best to train: what to do and what not to do, what to ask from oneself and what to allow, down to what to equip oneself with. It is a great pleasure for me to be able to share my talent and my emotions as an ex professional with those who ride for passion”.
