The technical commissioner of the national cycling team, Daniele Bennati, will be at dinner with friends. Francesco Moser will also be there, in another hotel, while Dimitri Konychev has arrived at Gambrinus to spend a few days in Riccione where he is now at home. Then there are professionals, journalists and cyclists who will take advantage of the Riccione stage of the Giro for a few hours in the company of friends and relatives who have arrived to breathe the Adriatic air which takes on a particular flavor in the Green Pearl. “The Giro d’Italia in Riccione is a bit like the Ski World Cup in Saint Moritz”, says Mariagrazia Nicoletti, vice president of regional Terrabici. “The bike hotels in the city are all full in this period. Some teams are staying in Riccione, others have found accommodation in nearby Cattolica”. Among these there is also the team of the leader of the classification Pogacar. But when counting attendance you cannot limit yourself to just the number of the Giro caravan. “In Riccione many take the opportunity to meet friends or relatives who have come specially”. An event within an event that fills hotel rooms, restaurants, clubs and shops in the seaside area. A pink fever that is infecting the city and offers all those who have arrived or will arrive in Riccione for the Giro a series of initiatives and installations that will remain even after the passage of the cyclists.
Among these is the ‘Pink Pearl’ of eleven meters in diameter in the heart of the ‘living room’, which from above will accompany the passage of the group at the start of the stage tomorrow morning. A large print. It is the pearl of the cartoonist and illustrator Alessandro Baronciani, in the heart of Riccione at the intersection of the two most famous pedestrian streets in the city, Viale Ceccarini and Viale Dante. Located not far from the Giro open village located between viale Virgilio, piazzale Ceccarini and viale Giardini, the Pearl presents a large marble with a girl who has a cyclist in the palm of her hand, but not just any cyclist. That cyclist is Marco Pantani. Furthermore, a series of small-format reproductions of the Pink Pearl of the Adriatic will be positioned at the edges of the route and will symbolically escort the group to the start of the stage. When the Giro has left Riccione, Baronciani’s work will remain in Riccione. The original version, from which the large format reproduction of Viale Ceccarini is taken, was in fact acquired by the Villa Franceschi Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art.
Andrea Oliva
