There racing bike it was destroyed, crumpled in front of the van that cut him off. Matteo Lorenzi, 17 years old from Fornace, he did not survive the impact. Extremely violent. He attended the Galilei scientific high school in Trento and ran in the historical ranks Montecorona sports unionin the first year of the «juniores» category, after starting his career with the Valcembra shirt.
Matteo Lorenzi hit by a van in Trentino
He was traveling along provincial road 83 towards Civezzano (Trent)to reach his teammates, who were waiting for him for training a few bends later, when at the height of the «Kaisera» he would parked in front of the nose of a vanwhich when exiting a small road in the industrial area of Sille would not have precedence respected. The clash is inevitable.
The attempts to save the 17-year-old cyclist of the Montecorona team
Shortly after 3.30pm, rescue services started immediately. The health workers, the Carabinieri of Trento and the local police rushed to the scene, assisted by the volunteer firefighters of Civezzano. The accident appeared immediately very serious and the operators requested the intervention of the air ambulance, which landed a few minutes later. But the wounds were fatal and the life-saving maneuvers were of no avail.
The president of the company: «He took that route every day»
«He traveled this road every day. There squad as usual he was waiting for him but he didn’t arrive, so his companions decided to go and meet him – try to reconstruct Riccardo Dalvitpresident of Montecorona — When they saw their way blocked by the police due to an accident, they understood everything.”
The pain of relatives and the community: “We are all in mourning”
The family is on its knees, the town of Fornace is shocked. “The whole community is in mourning, we rally around the family”, he expressed the pain of his fellow villagers the mayor Mauro Stenicowho reached the crash site his father Luca, owner of the Lorenzi sawmill in Valle Fornace, his mother Erica and his brother. Still in disbelief. Locked in suffering. «A tragedy is always painful, but it is even more painful in a community small like ours – continued the mayor – Now is the time for prayer».
The desperate driver repeats: “I didn’t see him coming”
The investigators are working to shed light on the exact dynamics and ascertain the responsibilities, even if the driver himself, desperate, admitted to having exited the stop sign without noticing the arrival of the bicycle. His van was still in the middle of the road, with the mirror and window destroyed by the impact, while sitting on a wall at the side of the road he repeated to the exhaustion of not having seen it. With his hands that didn’t leave his face.
His teammates and coach were left in disbelief
The friends who were still waiting for him they don’t understand: «A golden boy, of great humanity, the athlete that everyone would have liked to have on the team and that any director would have wanted to have as a runner – Dalvit recalls him – He leaves us with an enormous void, we won’t forget it never”. His words are echoed coach, Erwin Dallio: «He was a boy with a head on his shoulders. He loved cycling and he thought a lot about training, but he always managed to combine school commitments. I didn’t think it could end like this.”
The pain of the cycling world
The The bicycle world is in mourningand this tragedy is part of the dramatic list of runners, professional and otherwise, who lose their lives on the roads. Lorenzi’s death makes it increasingly urgent to rethink the boundary between the rights of cyclists and the demands of motorists.
Simoni: «Even the most experts can do nothing in those cases»
Gilberto Simoni, winner of two Giro d’Italia and member of the Montecorona board, has few doubts. He knew Matteo: «I feel like I’m reliving the tragedy of Scarponi», the champion who died in 2017 after a collision with a van while he was training for the Giro. «Hearing of Matteo’s news was a punch in the stomach – said Simoni – Even experienced cyclists, who know the dynamics of the road, faced with the negligence of the drivers they cannot do anything. Whoever has a car tries to be master of the road.”
The crux of road safety
And, extending the reasoning also to those who frequent the roads in the saddle as an enthusiast, specifies: «I participate in conferences and the numbers that emerge regarding accidents are scary. And not just for sports members.” Even if, in these moments, it remains a priority for the Trentino champion closeness to family: «Their pain is unimaginable, but now I too feel the same emptiness as them. I can’t accept that such a young boy can’t have another chance.” Also the mayor of Civezzano, Katia Fortareljoins in the condolences: «We would never want to hear news of this type, we are close to the family».
