Sam’s emotional Challenge Tour ride for wife Anita and others hit by cancer

Sam Sciancalepore has ridden a bike for as long as he can remember, but there has been something special about the rides in the Challenge Tour over the years as he dedicates them to wife Anita.

Sam Sciancalepore is riding in The Challenge Tour as a tribute to his wife, Anita, and her battle with cancer. Picture: Naomi Jellicoe

For the first couple of Challenge Tour rides, Sam Sciancalepore admits to getting emotional.

Five years on it is more of a celebration of wife Anita, who has been to hell and back with breast cancer.

Sciancalepore has ridden a bike for as long as he remember but only took up the Challenge Tour, presented by The Advertiser, after Anita’s was hit by the disease.

It will always be close to his heart.

It was back in 2013 that Anita was diagnosed. She had an Achilles injury that just would not go away and during extensive tests, it was found that she had breast cancer.

Cancer had already struck that side of the family heavily.

Anita’s grandmother died from the disease, three of her four daughters were taken by it and now it is running rife in Anita’s generation of women.

After chemotherapy, radiation therapy and a double mastectomy Anita is travelling well at the minute, but Sam says the worry never goes away.

“She’s a trooper,” Sam said. “She keeps doing what she does best and that is to keep the family unit going.

“It’s an ongoing thing; with the family history it’s always in the back of our minds.

“You just don’t know when the next bombshell is going to go off.

“But we’re trying to life to the fullest.

“We just got back from a 10-week overseas holiday just to enjoy life and do the things you can while you can.

“You would hope that it’s beaten but we’re realistic in that you just don’t know.

“So you live life to the fullest and create memories.”

Because of Anita’s battles — and The Challenge Tour’s close connection with the SA Cancer Council — the event stirs something in Sam.

He gets to mingle with others who have gone through similar fates but more importantly, he rides for Anita.

“The first couple of years … I remember posting on Facebook, `I’ll go through the short-term pain but that’s nothing in comparison to what my wife is going through.’

“Especially at the time when she was going through the chemo or the radio.

“It’s become more a ride to challenge myself but in the first few years it was very much with my wife in the back of my head.

“She comes up to meet us at the end of it and we’ll make a big of a day of it.

“It is a bit emotional, the whole thing.

“It’s very much a tribute to her.”

Cancer Council SA is the official charity partner of the Santos Tour Down Under.

The Cancer Council SA manage the Ride for a Reason campaign where registered participants in the Challenge Tour can nominate to raise funds for the charity.

Since 2009 Ride for a Reason has raised $4 million for the Cancer Council.

Originally published as Sam’s emotional Challenge Tour ride for wife Anita and others hit by cancer