Giro d’Italia 1909, a legend of dedication and fortitude is born
One of the world’s most famous bicycle races started from Rondò Loreto, in Milan, at 2 o’clock in the morning with a sequence of gruelling and even daring stages and cyclists many of whom were amateurs
Giro d’Italia 1909, a legend of dedication and fortitude is born
It was 2:53 in the morning on
13 May 1909 when the first Giro d’Italia set off from what was then called Rondò Loreto in Milan. The 127 competitors had been handed a somewhat epic-sounding card, which began “The hour is at hand. The battle looms. The cycling enthusiasts of all nations admire you and await you” and ended with a de Coubertin-sounding assertion: “your daring beau geste marks the beginning of a victory. There is the soul of a winner in each of you.” Of those 127, only 49 made it to the end.
Friday, 2 April 2021
The distinctive bright pink pages have become familiar across the world and since it first appeared in news kiosks 125 years ago this week,
Gazzetta dello Sport has become an institution.
The paper has acclaimed Olympic champions, World Cup victories and defeats but also has also exposed sporting scandal and witnessed tragedy. It has even devoted a front page to the passing of a Pope.
It is said to be the most-read in Italy, either in print or online, which would have astonished founders Eugenio Camillo Costamagna and Eliso Rivera in 1896.
It came about as the result of a merger between the Milanese