“I didn’t recognise myself… but little by little, I’m starting to see the person I was before” – UAE’s unsung hero refuses to let life-threatening 2025 crash end his top-level career

For a rider who had already become a trusted part of the most dominant team in the modern peloton, August 2025 threatened to take away far more than a season. It came close to taking away everything.

When Filippo Baroncini hit a wall at high speed during the Tour de Pologne, the consequences were immediate and severe. Vertebrae, collarbone and facial bones were broken. He was placed in a medically induced coma. His recovery would stretch across months, not weeks. For a rider embedded inside the all-conquering, record-breaking structure of UAE Team Emirates - XRG, the crash did not simply interrupt momentum. It placed a question mark over his future at the very top of the sport.

And yet, months later, Baroncini speaks not with bitterness or fear, but with a striking sense of clarity.

“I didn’t recognise myself… but little by little, I’m starting to see the person I was before,” he said in an interview with Tutto Bici Web.

The severity of what happened is never far from the surface when Baroncini reflects on the crash. “The worst thing is thinking that I could have left a void in my family,” he said. “The idea of making the people you love suffer breaks you inside.”

That awareness has fundamentally reshaped his outlook. “After what happened to me on 6 August, I realised that in the end the small things matter: the love of family, of my girlfriend and of my friends,” he explained, describing a shift in priorities that only comes when the margin between recovery and tragedy becomes uncomfortably thin.

The physical consequences were stark. “I had lost 14 kilos. When I left hospital I looked like I’d come out of a concentration camp,” Baroncini said, recalling the moment he was finally discharged from Niguarda Hospital in Milan after weeks of surgery and rehabilitation.

Even confronting his own reflection became a challenge. “It took me some time to accept looking at myself in the mirror,” he admitted. “Between scars and deformities, I was extremely swollen, I didn’t recognise myself.”

Returning to training with the peloton’s benchmark team was never going to be straightforward. But simply being back among his teammates mattered more than any performance marker. “This was obviously a slightly different training camp, there was more suffering involved, but just being there riding with my teammates was a real joy,” Baroncini said.

That sense of belonging was matched by tangible progress. “Since getting back on the bike I’ve felt things improving day after day and now I’ve reached a decent level,” he explained, careful not to overstate how far along he really is.

Before the crash, Baroncini had already carved out a clear role inside UAE’s system. A former under-23 world champion, a winner of the Tour of Belgium, and a rider trusted across stage races and demanding one-day events, he had become a reliable cog in a machine that has redefined dominance at WorldTour level. The challenge now is not reinvention, but restoration.

There is no bravado in how Baroncini talks about his recovery. “It will still take some time,” he said. “My aerobic system hasn’t yet returned to where it was, and consequently neither has my endurance.”

If there is one lesson this crash has reinforced, it is patience. “With the years I’ve learned to be patient, now I’ll need even more of it,” he said.

Some hurdles, at least, are already behind him. “The phases that could have worried me more, like mobility and strength, are already behind me,” Baroncini explained. “My back and posture are improving.”

That perspective extends to how he views misfortune itself. “This recovery is different from the other injuries, because before I would say ‘what bad luck, another crash’,” he said. “This time I’m aware that it could have gone much worse, so even in bad luck I was also fortunate.”

Since turning professional, injuries have followed Baroncini with unsettling regularity. Asked whether he ever questions why it keeps happening, his answer is blunt. “Yes, all the time,” he said.

But the conclusion he draws is equally clear. “The circle sooner or later has to close,” Baroncini said, expressing a belief that this pattern cannot define his career.

“I don’t want to be remembered as the guy who was always crashing or breaking bones,” he continued. “I want people to talk about what I managed to do in sport.”

That desire goes to the heart of why returning to the top level matters. “I feel I have the potential to do something good, and I already showed that when I was healthy,” Baroncini said. “I can’t imagine ending my career with the idea that cycling took something away from me, instead of giving me something.”

The internal debate, he admits, is ongoing. “I ask myself whether it’s worth it, but the answer is always yes, it’s worth it,” he said. “The motivation and the desire to leave a mark are too strong for me to give up.”

Given the nature of the crash, fear would be an understandable companion on the road. Baroncini insists it has not followed him back into the peloton. “Actually no,” he said when asked whether he worries about returning to racing.

Even in training, that confidence has returned quickly. “Even during the training camp, on descents, I stayed calmly on the wheel of my teammates,” he explained. “After accidents like this, you have to be able to reset, and I think I’ve managed to do that.”

That ability to reset is central to the next phase of his recovery.

Baroncini is deliberately resisting the temptation to attach himself to a fixed comeback date. “It wouldn’t be right to plan a specific return,” he said. “The first objective is to become myself again.”

Only then will racing enter the conversation. “Once I’ve recovered my performance, then we can start talking about a return to racing,” he explained. Progress so far has been faster than expected. “Nobody expected me to be training with my teammates already in December,” he noted.

Quiet optimism remains. “Deep down I hope to be back in the peloton in March,” Baroncini said, before reiterating the uncertainty that still defines his situation.

Throughout the process, UAE Team Emirates - XRG have removed one potential source of pressure entirely. Just days after the crash, the team confirmed a contract extension through to 2027. “They give me great peace of mind,” Baroncini said. “They’re not putting me under pressure, they’re only thinking about my full recovery and giving me maximum support. That was by no means guaranteed.”

The backing has been personal as well as professional. “The team was extraordinary,” he said, recalling visits and support from teammates, staff and management during his hospital stay.

Asked whether there is a particular race he dreams of returning at, Baroncini’s answer strips everything back to its essence. “No, I have no preferences,” he said. “Whether it’s the Tour of Flanders or the worst race on the calendar, the only thing I’m looking for is the rider I was before the crash.”

“At that point,” he added, “I know for sure that I’ll be happy.”

For UAE Team Emirates - XRG, that rider was already a proven, trusted component of a historic winning machine. Baroncini’s fight now is not just to race again, but to reclaim his place inside it — on his own terms, at the very top of the sport.