Life, death, mysteries by Ottavio Bottecchia. The fascinating and mysterious story of the first Italian cyclist to win the Tour de France in 1924 will open the 13th edition of the cultural event entitled «Book Month», curated by the journalist Ezio Franceschini in collaboration with the Municipality of Alpago.
«The horn of Orlando» (ed. 66thand2nd 2017) is the title of the book by sports journalist Claudio Gregori who will tell the public about an epic that dates back to the time of the two-wheel pioneers, with a Venetian runner (born in San Martino di Colle Umberto), a certain Ottavio Bottecchia who in 1924, without even a professional victory behind him, won, yellow jersey from start to finish, the most grueling cycling race: the legendary Tour de France.
Bottecchia was the first Italian to win the Tour, but Bottecchia, as Gregori writes, is above all a mystery, both as a rider and as a man: war hero, ignored but spied on by the Regime, who suddenly disappeared one June morning during training solitary. A fall? A political ambush as was fashionable during fascism? A crime of passion? A history of betting?
Almost a century after his death, demystifying the most imaginative hypotheses, Claudio Gregori draws on an unprecedented mass of documents to rewrite the definitive history of one of the greatest champions of the pedal, an ungainly Cyrano with aviator glasses and tubular shoulder strap, however capable of dominating the Tour more than Bartali and Coppi.
They will talk with the author of the book Valentina De Marchi and Fabio Dal Pan of the «Isoipse» association which manages the «Toni Bevilacqua» Bicycle Museum in Cesiomaggiore.
On Friday 17 May, at 6.30 pm at the town hall of Puos d’Alpago, the Bicycle Museum will also be the protagonist of a meeting where an exhibition of historic bicycles from the Sanvido collection and an exhibition of paintings by Vico Calabrò will be inaugurated. Starting with the preview on 8 March with the presentation of Simona Baldelli’s book «Alfonsina e la strada» (Sellerio 2021 edition), this edition of the «Book Month» brings together sport and culture by proposing various events from May to June in the of the Giro d’Italia, with Alpago the stage city from 23 to 25 May, the day on which the penultimate stage of the pink race is scheduled to start with the Alpago-Bassano del Grappa fraction.
There is also theater and music in this edition of the “Month”, with the show by sports journalist Marino Bartoletti entitled “Pedaling and singing in history”, scheduled for Thursday 23 May at 6.30pm in the square in Farra d’Alpago. But there is not only cycling among the appointments with books dedicated to sport: Riccardo Pittis is expected in June with his book on basketball «Lasciatemi lose» (ed. Roi 2022) and Elvis Lucchese with a book on rugby entitled « Pioneers. The origins of rugby in Italy. 1910-1945″ (ed. Piazza 2024).
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