July 11, 2004 – Pedal Magazine approached me after my article about “How to Deal with the Problem of Doping” and asked me to start writing for them. The editors wanted me to tell you a little about myself. I’ll do my best to make it brief as I really don’t like talking about myself. I was born in Charlottesville, VA in 1977. I grew up on a nice horse farm in the country. I have always been kinda irritated with the world. I used to throw tantrums all the time. I can remember beating the floor with my fists sometimes for hours if I didn’t get it my way. I couldn’t imagine having to raise a child like me. I would have killed myself if I had been my mom.

Things were going well until I got to kindergarten. During my first year in school, between trading my “Safe Way Sliders” with other kids, playing with G.I. Joe’s , and wondering why a girl named Margaret ate her boogers I started to get these mad painful fevers. They wouldn’t go away, I was running a fever of 110 degrees for about a week. My mom would drive me around in the car, to make me feel better but I was feeling the pain – in the words of Svein Tuft, “like nobody’s business.”

Finally my mom checked me into a local hospital in Culpeper, VA. I was immediately jammed with needles, and thrown on the a table like I was an alien. The worse thing was, nobody knew what was wrong with me. I sat there asking my mom, “When can I go home?” And she answered, “I don’t know? You might have to go to another hospital.” That was not the answer I was looking for. Soon they told me I had to leave the hospital, and they put me in an ambulance. I was sitting in the back, looking at my dad following in his black Nissan 280ZX through the little glass window. I can remember waving to him, but thinking “this is non bouno.”

As soon as I got to Charlottesville Hospital, they took all my clothes off, and in a room filled with doctors they continued to jab me with needles, listen to my lungs, and take x-rays. I thought for sure I was going to get cancer from all the x-rays as I’d seen a special about it on the nightly news. I kept asking them, “What are you doing? Why are you doing that?” I didn’t want them to touch me. I hated it, I was crying, scared, and embarrassed being in my Spider Man underwear, in front of all these scary doctors. Well it turned out that I had a lung abscess. There was a growth in my left lung the size of a grape fruit. The doctors had no idea of how it got there, or what to do.

The put me in the number one bed in the hospital. I sat there for two weeks with an IV in my right arm, eating pancakes, and jello. Everyone in my class sent me a card, and my mom slept by my side every night in a LazyBoy recliner. They aways had a wheel chair for me to sit in but I refused, I walked around the hospital whenever I could. But mostly I would just sleep and watch the “Price is Right.” The surgeons wanted to operate, and the pediatricians wanted to continue giving me medicine. Finally the surgeons won, and they decided to operate. They jacked me full of drugs, and took me into the operating room. I can remember seeing three or four images of my mom. They stuck a tube down into my lungs and removed the abscess. My fever went away and I was cured. My dad said part of my left lung was damaged, and I don’t know if it grew back stronger, but when I was 16 years old I had a VO2 max of over 80.

I thought it was a miracle because nobody knew how the abscess got there and how I now had such a crazy VO2 max. But ever since that time, I was never the same. I tried to enjoy everyday to the best and I always made my health as my number one priority. So in grade three I started playing soccer and did that until the age of 14 when my mom got me a mountain bike. I asked her if I could race my mountain bike and she said yes. I won my first race at 14. At 15 I saw the Tour DuPont “live” on TV. I went out with my cousin and cheered on Greg LeMond, Lance Armstrong, and Davis Phinney who turned out to be Roy Knickman. “Shut up! Please, I’m Roy!” Pretty funny considering he would be my coach later in life. I fell in love with the sport. I wanted to be a professional so badly. I got my first road bike and road in an MS 150 with my father. I was hooked.

At15 years old I became a licensed racer and did a bunch of local races. I was the worst. I didn’t know anything and I was terrified of crashing. But I had some good instincts when it came to racing. At 16, I did the stupidest thing ever, I made a wrong turn at the Jr. Nationals in the time trial. I was so upset with myself, because I thought I had a strong chance to win. I went home and trained my hardest to prepare for the Killington Stage Race. It was to be my first stage race, and I was an awesome climber, so I was looking forward to the mountain finishes. At the prologue I suffered like a dog, racing in the junior category. The funny thing was, and I didn’t know it, but my time was to stick for a long time. All the 4’s went and nobody could beat it. All the 3’s went and nobody could beat it. All the women went and nobody could beat it. All the Masters went and nobody could beat it. Finally the pros went and only 9 riders could beat my time up the mountain! I even beat old Tyler Hamiliton as he was racing for TCBY.

People were wondering ‘who is this kid?’ I had no idea what I had done, I was just worried to see if I had won the junior race. I took the jersey for a couple days, but I got dropped in the crit and almost lost the race, but my teammate Jon Hamblem came to my rescue and paced me around so I didn’t lose too much time. The last day I just burned up the mountain again and took the jersey back. After that race I was invited to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs that fall. At that point in my life I decided cycling was what I was going to do. I dedicated every second of my life to becoming a faster racer. When I was 18 years old I joined the US National Team after winning the Jr. National Championship Time Trial. That’s when my life really started to get interesting and I got a taste of the real world.

Sincerely, Matt DeCanio

For more about Matt Decanio, visit www.Iturnpro.com