Photo credit: Lidl–Trek

By Unbroken | Interview with Dr. Elisabetta Borgia, Head of Psychology at Lidl–Trek

At WorldTour level, cycling performance is no longer defined by physical capacity alone. The modern rider operates within a complex system—high training loads, dense racing calendars, constant travel, data saturation, media exposure, and sustained pressure to perform. Navigating that system requires not only physical resilience, but mental clarity, emotional regulation, and long-term balance.

Few people understand this environment as deeply as Dr. Elisabetta Borgia, Head of Psychology at Lidl–Trek. A former elite cyclist herself, Borgia has been instrumental in integrating psychology into the team’s daily performance culture, working with riders, staff, and leadership to support both performance and health across the season.

Since joining the team in 2019, she has helped shape a holistic approach to high performance, one that recognizes mental readiness not as an add-on, but as a foundational pillar.

From elite cyclist to performance psychologist

Cycling is not just Dr. Borgia’s profession—it is part of her identity.

A former competitive cyclist with 17 years of racing experience, she earned two Italian cyclocross titles and competed in three UCI Mountain Bike World Championships. In 2011, she graduated with honors from the Università Cattolica in Milan, later combining clinical training with applied work in elite sport.

Her early professional path included collaboration with the Italian Cycling Federation Study Center, followed by individual work with Elisa Longo Borghini and, eventually, broader involvement with the Trek–Segafredo Women’s team—most notably during the disrupted 2020 season, when psychological support became critical amid uncertainty and isolation.

“Cycling is part of my DNA and my education,” she explains. “Clinical and sport psychology are my major interests—my vocations.”

Importantly, Dr. Borgia has never stepped away from clinical practice. “I have never wanted to abandon the clinical activity,” she says.

“Working daily with the human suffering of normal people—not just professional athletes—is a continuous training and a constant growth. I consider the possibility to combine both an added value.”

That dual perspective—elite performance and everyday human experience—strongly shapes how she works within WorldTour sport.

“I take care of the water”: psychology as a performance environment

When asked to define her role within Lidl–Trek, Dr. Borgia uses a metaphor that captures her systems-level approach.

“If we use the metaphor of the aquarium,” she says, “I take care of the water—so the fish can swim, feel healthy, and feel comfortable.”

Her work extends well beyond individual rider sessions. While one-to-one meetings are central, much of her focus is on the environment: communication styles, leadership behaviors, staff dynamics, and the invisible pressures that accumulate over time.

“My job is not just connected to the riders,” she explains. “I work with the staff, with the system in general—looking at performance, but also at the health of the system.”

Today, Dr. Borgia travels extensively with the team, attending training camps and races, while also maintaining continuity through online sessions. From 2024 onward, she is supported by two additional psychologists—an indication of how central psychology has become within the performance structure.

“It’s clear that psychology is getting more and more important in the sport environment,” she notes.

Building foundations before pressure arrives

For Dr. Borgia, the most important psychological work happens before the racing season begins.

“The winter training camps -December and January - are the key moments,” she explains. “That’s where we assess new riders, define profiles, strengths, and improvement goals, and set the team direction for the season.”

These camps are about alignment: reviewing the previous season, setting shared objectives, and creating trust.

“If we don’t create something before,” she says, “it’s really hard to work when the pressure is high at the races.”

Once competition starts, that groundwork allows psychological support to shift from construction to execution, helping riders stay focused, adaptable, and emotionally regulated when margins are small.

Photo credit: Lidl–Trek / @GettyImages

Different races, different mental demands

Dr. Borgia distinguishes clearly between the psychological demands of one-day races and stage races.

In one-day events, the focus is on anticipation and scenario planning. “We work before the race to define possible scenarios, to anticipate,” she explains. “In general, to optimize mental performance.”

Stage races and Grand Tours, however, introduce a different challenge: sustaining focus and motivation while managing cumulative fatigue. “The rider needs to stay mindful in the present,” she says, “but also see the big picture.”

Here, mental performance becomes inseparable from recovery behaviors: sleep, nutrition, emotional decompression, and the ability to reset between stages.

“It’s not just about performance,” she emphasizes. “It’s about recovery, being able to rest as much as possible between stages.”

The modern mental load: data, media, and overstimulation

Asked about the biggest mental challenges facing today’s professional cyclists, Dr. Borgia looks beyond the sport itself. “Riders don’t live in a vacuum,” she says. “It’s not just the sport system, it’s the culture we are in.”

She highlights a broader culture of performance, where constant stimulation, digital connectivity, and blurred boundaries between work and rest create sustained cognitive load.

“Technology has increased the variables riders need to manage,” she explains. “When I was training, we measured our heart rate - nothing more. Now there are many devices, many numbers.”

While data can enhance performance, it also carries risk. “The numbers are a huge threat for the new generation,” she says. “They rely on them and lose awareness of their own feelings.”

At the same time, social media has changed the role of the athlete. “Riders don’t need to be only performers anymore,” she says. “They need to be characters. Everything is live.”

Mindfulness as a performance skill

Rather than adding more tools, Dr. Borgia often works on simplifying attention. Mindfulness, in her view, is not a trend or a lifestyle concept—it is a trainable performance skill that helps riders regulate pressure and stay cognitively available when it matters most.

“If we are in the present, we can’t physically think about something else,” she explains. “Anxiety is connected to the future; other emotions are connected to the past.”

To make that capacity reliable under race stress, she builds it into everyday routines—because attention is a habit before it is a performance tactic. “While you are eating, please be aware of what you are eating,” she says. “While you are having a shower, be aware of the warmth of the water, or the smell of the soap you’re using.” These micro-moments of attention—food, water, breath, sensations—become rehearsal for the moments that matter most in racing, when focus must be immediate, controlled, and repeatable.

“We need to train attention,” she adds. “Not only in training, but in ordinary life.”

Health before performance

As a clinical psychologist, Dr. Borgia is clear about the starting point of any performance discussion. “We need healthy riders—physically and mentally—if we want to build performance.”

She warns against a common paradox in elite sport: when athletes struggle, they often push harder instead of stepping back.

“Sometimes you need to do less,” she explains, “but you want to do more—to prove that things are going well.”

This is where mental fatigue often begins.

Mental fatigue: prevention over reaction

Dr. Borgia describes mental fatigue as a psychophysiological state that develops through prolonged cognitive and emotional demands. “You don’t wake up one day fatigued,” she says. “We need to work on awareness—preventively.”

Mental fatigue often appears before physical fatigue and can significantly reshape how physical effort is perceived. If it goes unnoticed, it undermines recovery, decision-making, motivation, and long-term sustainability.

This is why she places strong emphasis on subjective feedback, not just performance metrics. “How did you feel before training? How did you feel after?” she asks riders, deliberately redirecting attention from numbers to internal signals. Without that awareness, she warns, athletes risk becoming mechanical—executing sessions without understanding their true cost.

Crucially, this work is grounded in relationship and context. Dr. Borgia stresses that mental fatigue cannot be assessed in isolation from an athlete’s environment. “We need to know the rider,” she explains—where they come from, how long they have been away from home, and what they are carrying emotionally alongside the training load. For a rider who has been living abroad for months, far from family, the mentally optimal choice may differ from the physiologically optimal one.

“In some cases,” she explains, “even if it would be better from a physical point of view to stay at altitude longer, it’s healthier to go home a few days earlier—change environment, see family, reset—before the race.” Those decisions are made individually, balancing performance with mental recovery.

For Dr. Borgia, this adaptive approach is essential: mental fatigue is managed not by rigid plans, but by understanding the person behind the athlete—and adjusting the system around them to protect both health and performance.

The “energy tank”: a model for sustainable careers

To explain long-term performance, Dr. Borgia uses a metaphor riders immediately understand. “At the beginning of the season, we have a full tank,” she says. “Everything you do takes energy and fuel from the tank.” The key is learning how—and when—to refuel it across a long calendar.

“If we only plan where we want to peak, but never when we need to rest,” she explains, “we will eventually run out of fuel—because rest is part of the next peak.”

That same framework becomes essential during setbacks like injury or illness. In those periods, her priority is to create a clear recovery structure—so the rider stays oriented and motivated while performance is temporarily off the table. “The first goal is to be healthy,” she says, working alongside doctors and therapists to define a pathway back. From there, she focuses on “checkpoints” and short-term objectives that make progress visible: sometimes as simple as, “I can do half an hour of rollers—and be happy, because we are going in the right direction.”

Without those intermediate markers, she warns, recovery can become psychologically draining—especially when athletes see others continuing to train and race. Clear mini-goals protect motivation, reduce frustration, and help riders accept the time needed to rebuild properly.

To keep that awareness alive across the season, the team also uses simple reflection tools—like quick energy ratings and check-ins. “It’s not about more data,” Dr. Borgia explains. “It’s about reflection.”

Lessons for everyday athletes

Dr. Borgia believes these principles apply even more strongly to non-professionals, because amateurs draw from the same energy source for everything—not just training.

“Amateur athletes draw energy from the same tank—for work, family, and training,” she says. Sport can be a powerful regulator of emotions, but only if recovery and balance are respected—especially because training has to fit around real life. Many passionate amateurs will wake up very early to train before work, or squeeze sessions in late at night, but the same “tank” still has to cover a full day of professional and family responsibilities.

She also emphasizes proper goal setting. “A goal is not a desire,” she says. A good goal sits between realistic and challenging—achievable with consistency and rest, but still stretching progress. Otherwise, it becomes a “dream,” and frustration follows. As she puts it, if someone sets an objective like “I want to beat the KOM of Pogačar,” it may sound motivating, but if it’s not grounded in the athlete’s current level, it’s “failure in advance.”

The result: motivation fades, direction is lost, and enjoyment disappears.

Her message is not to reduce ambition, but to calibrate it: assess where you are now, define a stretch target that is genuinely attainable with consistency and rest, and build momentum through achievable checkpoints. That is how motivation stays stable—and how sport remains sustainable and enjoyable over time.

The future of sports psychology: less noise, more clarity

While Dr. Borgia acknowledges the value of emerging technologies - VR, biofeedback, neurofeedback - she remains cautious.

“The risk is to add more cognitive load,” she says. “And cognitive load brings fatigue.”

In her view, the future advantage lies not in complexity, but in prioritization. “Find the few variables that really matter,” she explains. “Delegate, let go, simplify.”

Final thought: performance follows strong foundations

Dr. Borgia closes with a philosophy that reflects both her clinical background and her experience in WorldTour sport: peak results are built through balance, not accumulation.

“I really trust in the idea of balance,” she says. “Performance is a consequence—if we create strong basics. Otherwise, it can work for a while, but it’s not sustainable.”

She also emphasizes how meaningful it is to work inside an organization that takes this approach seriously. “To be fair, I’m really proud to be part of this team,” she adds. “I’m proud of how we are improving in every department.” For Dr. Borgia, that evolution matters because it reinforces the principle she returns to throughout the conversation: when the environment is strong and the system is healthy, high performance is not forced—it becomes the natural outcome.

 

About Dr. Elisabetta Borgia

Dr. Elisabetta Borgia is Head of Psychology at Lidl–Trek. A former elite cyclist and Italian national champion, she combines clinical psychology with applied performance work, supporting riders and staff through training camps, races, and long-term development. Since joining the team in 2019, she has played a central role in embedding psychology into the WorldTour performance system.