Page 97 - Mediterraneo e dintorni - Maggio 2020

Luigi Ganna, vincitore del primo Giro
d’Italia, 1909

nasce un intrattenimento degno
dei nostri giorni: si chiamava
“Processo alla tappa” e fu bravo
Sergio Zavoli a inventarlo
con personaggi-ciclisti come
il litigioso abruzzese Taccone
e il simpatico lombardo
Panizza, ma anche il piangente
Merckx beccato al doping o lo
schizzinoso francese Anquetil,
che andava a champagne.
Il Giro, festa nazional-popolare,
per tre settimane non ha la
presenza abituale del Primo
Ministro come al Tour ma, dopo
111 anni, racconta ai giovani
come eravamo, da dove veniamo
e lo fa attraverso la fatica di
pedalare controvento, come
si fa nel quotidiano vivere. E
fa viaggiare coloro che non
possono, così come quelli che
quei posti lontani li hanno
attraversati davvero.
Prima pagina della Gazzetta dello Sport del 31 maggio 1909

and then getting off at Pontassieve. Not to win, only to kill the Dino Buzzati, Mario Ferretti’s radio commentaries that stopped
fatigue that was enormous, unthinkable in our day. The stages Italians every afternoon because Fausto Coppi ran against Gino
of that very first edition were eight, but ran from 13 to 30 May, Bartali. Cycling beat football and only Grande Torino knew join
therefore with rest at each stage. The kilometers were 2447, with it, then leaving it alone on May 4, 1949, after Superga. Television
89 hours of running at 27 km per hour on average. The route would arrive in the ‘55, you could see something projected in the
was a real tour of the country, with its departure from Milan, shops peeking behind the windows, so that the imagination of
the organizational headquarters, and then the descent towards the people rose only in front of the radio and the romance way
Bologna, then Chieti, with an uphill arrival. Then the crossing of of recount the fatigue of cyclists on roads never seen before, in
the Apennine Mountains to go to Naples, continuing through places like Stelvio, Pordoi, Abetone, Campitello, Camigliatello,
the Capital, Florence, the monarchical Turin of the Savoys and Ostuni. The Giro also photographed the country’s technological
Milan to the Castello Sforzesco where every day, on the gate, growth, with the vehicles gradually deployed by RAI and
sheets were put with news and rankings. The first name given to Eurovision. But those young man, cyclists, of modest and honest
the almanacs was that of Luigi Ganna. The cycling crowd beat extraction, went to the mistake in front of the microphones and
football in the times between the two wars: it was not the same the historical sentences of those time were born: “I’m glad to
as in the following decades but Rome, Milan and Naples were be the first to arrive” or “Hi mom!”. After 111 years, the Giro tells
at the height of the race that would follow the whole country today’s young people how we were and where we come from;
on its journey, up to the present day. And it would have made and it does it through the effort of pedaling against the wind,
us discover the emotion of the stories by Indro Montanelli, as in everyday life.

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