So never say never, even at the end of the month, even when a lifeless world of cycling in your world leaves you in the past. So, never say never, when you are about to anticipate the May column in April, complete with various and not vague honors prepared for Coppi in Campania, if not exactly on the Coast (Amalfi and not Ligurian…). Coppi for ever, writing on a mirror, ready, so as not to write on yourself.
Yet instead never say never, let’s lift ourselves from our lazy vocation as indolent lizards in the shadow of the last sun, there is an unexpected and bright future, a new reading and writing that is fresh and young, for cycling in the South. And let’s talk about bet (won) of this Tour of the Mediterranean in pink, promoted by Team Black Panthers of Francesco Vitiello di Torre del Greco and Biesse of Salvatore Belardo, the passionate organizer of Grumo Nevano who with the idea of the Giro della Campania in pink was its courageous and praiseworthy precursor.
The Tour of the Mediterranean in pink, and you have already read about it and well tuttobiciwebhas reached a second consecutive edition, outlining a project – particularly dear to us – of a Tirreno – Adriatico declined to the femininewith its five days of competition, starting from primeval Campania, the first two fractions in Terzigno and Torre del Greco, and the three subsequent arrivals in Puglia, in Barletta, Castelnuovo della Daunia and in Motta Montecorvino, the final finish line.
Well, never say never to the future, let’s do an April 2024 make-up, in our personal case it will be a make-up from Gerovital of yesteryear, and Let’s put the bikes back where they belong. On the road, on our streets, the cars or the jeers, without the noblesse obligée of the Giro d’Italia, will go further again. And they will turn off the engines, without blathering
Never say never, and we indulge in the conscious rhetoric of a «W the women»even barely removing the slippery edge of the «W le belle donne» dear to Nino Ferrer, and we thank them once more for being there and having been there.
Even if, this time, for having given an energetic support, a starting point of rhythm, to our emaciated cycling. Never say never, and we thought that the future could be even better than the past, even for us accustomed to perpetual amarcord, if there is a woman involved.
Never say never, to a cycling that is renewing itself, and then imagine an evening for dinner, in Naples, at «Antonio&Antonio», Partenope seafront, in front of the Castello dell’Ovo, the full moon, with Gianfranco Coppolathe national president of USSI, the publisher Marco Lo Bassothe promoter Salvatore Belardo, the coach Paolo Sangalli an absolute Bergamo gentleman who we felt like we had always known, and Marta Bastianelli, the former world champion of 2007, a girl in bloom who still rides her bike. A welcome evening, on the eve of the presentation of the Pink Tour of the Mediterranean, which would take place the following day. Never say never, to cycling and women, even in Naples, never.
And our mind that relentlessly returned, to that arrival on the same seafront as the first stage of the 2017 Giro della Campania in rosa, the Marcianise – Napoli, with the victory in the sprint by Martina Fidanza, ahead of Letizia Paternoster. An afternoon at the end of March, midweek, with very few people attending, and the bourgeois citizens annoyed by the traffic blocked for a maximum of ten minutes into the race. «Let’s all stay still there, there are some women riding bicycles».
Never say never, as time has sometimes passed happily. And, in April 2024, it does justice to itself.
from tuttoBICI in April
