She is the one winning major bike races like the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and the Giro d’Italia. He is the one making sure others have the best shot at winning major bike races. Elisa Longo Borghini and Jacopo Mosca got married in 2023 after meeting at the Lidl-Trek training camp in December 2019, prior to Mosca’s first full season with the team.
How do you build a life together when you are constantly traveling places to do your job? Who does the cooking, how do you keep track of so much laundry but most importantly how do you schedule precious time together?
Despite their – on paper – identical jobs, most of that time doesn’t come on the bike, thanks to the demands of the season, and their different roles.
“Our training is still rather similar,” Mosca says. They do some endurance rides together when they’re home, but more often train separately. “We are both riding our bikes but there is a different focus on some things like high intensity that she does more than I do. I do more endurance and medium intensity because my role is different.” Their respective paths to the pros were also different, although they crossed well before that training camp.
Mosca, now 31 years old, is the type of selfless rider who rides at the front of the peloton for hours. He does that in big Classics like Milan-San Remo for Mads Pedersen or in Grand Tours for Lidl-Trek’s sprinters and GC riders alike. His career started when he was just 10.
“No one in my family was involved in cycling,” he explains. “Most boys [in school] were doing football, but it was not for me. I did a bit of athletics and inline skating but since I always rode my bike around the place I grew up, I gave that a go. When I started to ride, I liked it more and more each year. Then came the dream of becoming pro and I made it.”
Longo Borghini, now 33, comes from a family of cyclists with her older brother Paolo a former pro rider of teams like Barloworld, Liquigas and Cannondale.
“I started when I was just nine at our local club,” she explains. “As kids you just ride for fun, to have a nice Sunday with family. I was also doing other sports like cross country skiing and running. Through the years it became more serious, but we were still kids when Jacopo and I first did our races.”
In fact, a kids’ race in Italy was their first real meeting, some 20 years before that team summit at Trek HQ. “We met when I was 11 years old and Elisa was 13,” Mosca explains. “We come from the same region but were at different clubs. I don’t think we ever talked as kids, to be honest.”
Because of their age difference, their races rarely overlapped, says Longo Borghini. But, she recalls, “There was one regional championship where we all raced together. I crashed out. Jacopo tried a really long sprint of maybe 500 meters and was caught just before the line. It was a famous story back then so when we met at Trek, I did remember we raced in the under-14s.”
Longo Borghini and Mosca were part of the same team for the past five seasons. Now that the Italian champion has moved to UAE Team ADQ, it will be a lot easier to separate laundry in the Mosca/Longo Borghini household.
“When we were at Lidl-Trek together, we shared some clothes because Jacopo is not that much taller than I am,” says Longo Borghini. As a five-time Italian road champion (and seven times TT champ), “it was easier to tell the jerseys apart and when it comes to bibs it’s of course a whole different story. When it comes to socks, or team t-shirts or hoodies there have been mix-ups because it’s just one big pile of kit. For me it was no problem wearing a men’s t-shirt or hoodie but for Jacopo mine were a bit too small,” Elisa laughs.
It sounds convenient to be on the same team, but it doesn’t mean the two see each other often. On the contrary with race programs that differ a lot, they can go months without seeing each other.
“When we are on the road we follow each other’s races via social media, TV or Procyclingstats. It’s great that I can watch so many more women’s races on TV right now,” Mosca explains.
Thanks to Mosca’s role, he’s often easily visible at the front of races as well. “At Milan-San Remo I got to see him at the front of the peloton on TV for hours. I press pause and he is there. I walk away and then I press play again and he is still there,” Longo Borghini adds with a smile.
They don’t often get the chance to see each other compete in person. But one race that Mosca was determined not to miss was the last stage of the Giro d’Italia. Longo Borghini took the leader’s pink jersey on the stage 1 time trial and had successfully defended it all week against a fierce onslaught by Lotte Kopecky, finally fighting to a draw on the queen stage with its double ascent of the Blockhaus climb.
Entering stage 8, Longo Borghini had just a one-second margin to her Belgian rival, with a hot, hilly 117 km stage between her and overall victory. “I drove straight from a training camp in Andorra to Pescara. That was a very emotional moment for all of us,” Jacopo says of the final day. Kopecky tried several times to jump in moves and get away, but Longo Borghini followed each one and finally got away with just a few hundred meters to go to lead home the field behind the break and lock up her win.
“I think this was the biggest victory of my career to date because I had been chasing it for so long,” says Longo Borghini. “I came close a few times but at some point, you just think, ‘I should better give up.’ When we had our team camp in [December] 2023 in Wisconsin, they just said to me, ‘Elisa, you go for the Giro.’ It was like a statement and in my mind that stuck. Everything I do from now on is for the Giro. During training I told myself, ‘This is for the Giro,’ and it became a mantra.”
A few days after her win there was a little celebration with a dinner on Lago Maggiore, close to where the couple lives in Verbania. It was one of those rare moments they got to spend at home.
“I am not a party person and just like to spend the time with my loved ones, with the people that really mean something to me,” Longo Borghini says. “I really appreciated that time together at home because there are so few moments.”
The offseason provides a rare, but short, respite and opportunity for time together. The couple did some hiking in the mountains in November and spent Christmas at home but duty calls in the new year.
Mosca leaves for Australia in early January, while Longo Borghini goes to train at altitude at Teide, on Tenerife. Then she starts the season in the UAE Tour where Mosca may or may not be because his life as a domestique comes with a more flexible schedule where he needs to step in for other riders more often.
When they part ways in January, they may not see each other again in person until Strade Bianche on March 8. “We are always in contact and try to make it work,” Longo Borghini says. “But you have different time zones and training times. You have to structure it quite well.”
Longo Borghini is the big champion with big wins behind her name. The Giro d’Italia, Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Flanders (twice), Trofeo Binda (twice), Strade Bianche and The Women’s Tour are just a few of her 47 wins. Mosca has three wins in China in 2017 and 2018 behind his name but his WorldTour career has been focused in service of teammates. Despite the huge difference in results both come across equally humble.
When I ask Mosca what kind of guy he is to give us commentators and journalists something to talk about during the long hours of Milan-San Remo or Giro stages, he only comes up with, ‘I am a normal guy who likes to ride my bike.’ His wife steps in and elaborates.
“Jacopo loves to cook. He likes cooking fish and scampi but just normal food that we both love,” says Longo Borghini. “He also loves to work on bikes. He spends a lot of time in the garage, working on chains and gearing and just making sure the bikes are 100% okay. I have to be honest, he does all my mechanic’s work and cleaning,” she smiles.
“He is also a very friendly person,” she continues. “He chats with everyone in the world. When he is angry, he is also a bit funny.” Mosca looks at her lovingly while Longo Borghini continues with a twinkle in her eyes. “He is a very funny person who likes to make people smile. I think making people smile is a good character trait in someone.”
Mosca is a gregario, a domestique, but he won’t let the chance to win a race go by if one presents itself. He’s come close a few times, including in his home Grand Tour where he has a bit more freedom to go in breakaways. His best result in the Giro was a third place in a stage in 2020 where he went on the attack with a big group. He’s all the more aggressive because those chances are far and few between when he has to work for a teammate.
“I think all riders still have that dream to win and when I have the opportunity, I will take it,” he says. But he also enjoys his role as a teammate. “I won a lot when I was younger, but I know what my limits are and that winning is not easy in the pro peloton. I like what I do now. It makes me happy to help a teammate as best I can. When a teammate wins, I also feel very proud.”
“I am always very proud of him,” Longo Borghini says with a loving glance. “It’s tough to sacrifice your own career for someone else. It’s not for everybody. You need character. Yes, it’s a job, but you need to put aside your own dreams and ambitions. Somebody else’s ambition is your job. Through Jacopo I also learned to appreciate the work of my teammates even more because I know what it takes, and I know it’s a very important job to be at the front all day.”
Mosca is equally proud of his wife. He followed women’s cycling well before he got to know her.
“I was watching all the races even though ten years ago there weren’t many on tv, “Mosca says. “I knew riders like Lizzie Deignan and of course Marianne Vos. Copenhagen [2011] was the first World Championship I saw. It’s really good [that] we get to see so much more now and that women can make a living in cycling. They have the same opportunities now and I hope in the future more women get paid doing the job I do and not only the biggest stars earn a good income.”
“I am a fan of cycling in general,” he continues. “I knew Elisa before and remember her first win in the Tour of Flanders [2015] very well. It was on TV in Italy. Now I follow everything even more with all the races, all the transfers and the gossip.”
So who is his favorite rider in the women’s peloton? He refuses to say, and whether it is Elisa. She laughs out loud. “He always does this. He never wants to answer this question.”
Longo Borghini signed a new three-year contract with UAE Team ADQ and Mosca has a final year in 2025 on his deal with Lidl-Trek. For now, it’s still about bikes, travelling the world and cherishing the little time they have together. They don’t see a change in the future when it comes to bikes, albeit riding will be more often together then. And when we look in the distant future?
“I think that if we are an old nonna and nonno we will still be riding bikes,” Mosca says with a smile. “We also love to be in the mountains to do long hikes. We just won’t stay on the couch for too long.”
“Maybe we do the last bit of climbing to the top of the mountain by car when we are old,” Longo Borghini adds with a laugh. “And finally, I am sure Jacopo will still be cleaning my bikes by then.”
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