Giacomo Agostini: “It’s very hard when you stop what you’ve been doing all your life”

MADRID, Nov. 17 (Royals Blue) –

The Italian ex-pilot Giacomo Agostini, 15 times motorcycling world champion, is clear that last Sunday had to be “very hard and very difficult” for his compatriot Valentino Rossi for ending his World Cup career and having to leave “what you wear doing my whole life.”

“I’m sure it was a sad day for Valentino because when you stop what you’ve been doing all your life it’s very hard and very difficult, but it happens to everything, it’s something that happens to all athletes. Life is like that, it’s hard , but we must realize that we must leave the place to young people, although he is still young at 42 years old,” Agostini told Europa Press.

In any case, ‘Il Dottore’ will continue as a pilot, although with cars. “This is something that helps you forget the bike, I also did it when I retired and was in a race with a Williams in a championship that Bernie Ecclestone organized,” he recalled.

Now, if he talks about “Italian riders”, he believes that the one closest to being able to relieve the nine-time world champion is Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati). “He has had a fantastic championship this year and has had options to win it, I think he already has a lot of experience and is ready to win,” said Agostini, who does not forget non-Italians such as the Frenchman Fabio Quartaro (Yamaha) or the Spanish Joan Mir (Suzuki) and Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda).

In this sense, the eight-time 500cc world champion hopes that the one from Cervera “will return to one hundred percent soon”. “I think that now the winter will help him rest and get in shape for next year,” said the man from Brescia, who has seen a World Cup in the “queen” category “very nice and very competitive.” “They have been fantastic races, surely when you saw a MotoGP one you couldn’t sleep because something happened in every lap, that’s why our sport is very loved”, he confessed.

Asked about the young Spaniard Pedro Acosta, Moto3 world champion at just 17 years old, Agostini described him as “fantastic”. “When the year began he won everything, including one (the second in Qatar) in which he started last from the pit lane,” he said.

“Then he had a very difficult moment in the middle of the championship, I don’t know for what reason, but in the final stretch he returned to the way he was at the beginning,” added the Italian, who downplayed the fact that he won the title due to the unfortunate fall of Dennis Foggia in Portimao. “This happens in our profession, but Acosta deserved the championship,” he stressed.

Giacomo Agostini attended Europa Press after attending, in his role as a member of the Laureus Academy, the ‘Marca Sport Weekend’ organized last week in Seville by the Spanish sports newspaper and in which the 1st Laureus Spain MARCA Sport for Good Awards were presented Honour, which finally went to his first position at the Gasol Foundation.

“I think it’s a nice initiative that ‘Marca’ has done because it’s associated with Laureus, of which I’m a member for the year 2000. Laureus is something very important because it’s an association that helps poor children who have nothing and the members of the Academy teach them to know the sport. It is a very beautiful and interesting initiative because we help them forget the street”, remarked the fifteen-time world champion.