“Murderers”, shouted Octave Lapize, French champion of that pioneering era, to the organizers of the Tour de France in 1910 from the top of the then dirt road Tourmalet, in the first, inhumane Pyrenean stage in history. The myth of the Tour, more than a hundred years later, still has its roots in that legend of dust and effort, of mountains and beloved, as they called them, heroes. The Tour, one of the most important sporting events after the Olympics and World Championships, had above all 4 masters: Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Miguel Indurain, four giants (the first three more than Navarro, Eddy more than anyone, then Bernard, then Jacques) who share the record of five yellow jerseys in Paris in their career. There would have been another who would have won seven Tours, but Lance Armstrong was just a trick, a doping machine, his name was erased with shame from the roll of honor of running and cycling. But in the glorious history of the Tour there has been only one champion, only one, capable of winning it again ten years after the first time, with the war in the middle. In 1938 and 1948, Gino, only him, Gino Bartali, who ten years later reappeared in front of the same mountain, asking him: “Do you recognize me, Izoard?”. In twenty days, on 29 June, the Tour de France, in its 111th edition, will start from Italy for the first time in history, from Florence, to pay homage to Gino Bartali, its Great Old Man, and to Gastone Nencini, the another great Florentine champion, yellow jersey in 1960, the “Lion of Mugello”. An amazing combination that has written the name of Florence in golden letters in the Tour’s palmares. Great days are approaching for Florence and for cycling that will be worth experiencing. To make it clear, if necessary, what Bartali represented for the Tour, and vice versa, we can tell you about a particular occasion we witnessed.
It was the 1994 Tour, and on the rest day of the race the organizers gathered all the yellow jerseys in history in Lourdes for a gala evening. Well, Gino was at the head of the table, the most celebrated, among Merckx, Hinault, Gimondi, Bahamontes, LeMond, Fignon and excellent company. I was there, as a correspondent for this newspaper following the Tour, I went to get him around midnight, we had arranged a nocturnal interview (which ended almost at dawn, only he spoke) for his eightieth birthday and he welcomed me almost hidden by a bundle of flowers with which they had honored him as the eldest of the group. He was bored, never tired: “Take me away, Fiesolino”, he called me that because of my age, certainly not my size. And he left the room to applause. Great, immense Gino. The imminent Great Departure of the Tour from Florence is therefore dedicated to him, and to Gastone Nencini. With the two unforgettable and unforgettable yellow jerseys of Florence, our thoughts go to Alfredo Martini from Sesto Fiorentino, the prince of technical commissioners with his six world gold medals, to Franco Bitossi from Camaioni, with his four stage victories at the Tour, to very Florentine Roberto Poggiali, to Marcello Mugnaini da Montemignaio, an excellent climber who put Anquetil and Altig behind him in the Pyrenees, and to the late Franco Ballerini. Tuscany is a highly titled region, present in all the rolls of honor of cycling, Tour, Giro, Vuelta, world championships, Olympics, with its champions, starting with Bartali, and with him Magni, Nencini, Bitossi, Bettini, Ballerini , Cipollini, Bartoli, Chioccioli, Tafi. The present is less generous, we are stuck at Bettiol’s tour of Flanders in 2019, waiting for new talents. In twenty days the Tour, the great Tour, with its new champions, will visit and pay homage to one of the cradles of cycling.
