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The passion of Fausto Coppi

Recent revelations that Gino Bartali hid a Jewish family in Florence to protect them from the Nazis as well as smuggling documents hidden in his bicycle frame past German roadblocks add to the legend of this great rider. Yet Bartali’s career was overshadowed by Fausto Coppi and it was Coppi who was and still is revered almost like a god by the Italians. Coppi who captured the hopes of the Italian nation after the disaster of the second world war.

Fallen Angel

Bartali, a devout Catholic, solid,  a strong powerful rider who could stay up all night drinking and ride strongly the next day.

Coppi, agnostic, nervous, fragile, lived a scandalous life for the time and the place to the extent that he was put on trial and could have ended up in prison for his affair with a married woman.

Coppi died when only forty years old from malaria contracted in Africa, this has added to his legend to the extent that over 10,000 people turned up recently to commemorate the 50^th anniversary of his death in 1960.

What Coppi had was charisma, it shows even looking at photographs of the man today, that sense of strength and fragility, slim, almost always withdrawn, the ten thousand metre stare. And he died young as well, he is in Italy the equivalent of a rock star for many people.

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Laurent Fignon died of cancer on 31 August of 2010, so this book is his last word on his life and career. It was published in June last year in France and this translation by the always excellent William Fotheringham was published this year.

We were young and carefree

The title of the opening chapter is Eight Seconds, the famous eight seconds by which he lost the 1989 Tour de France to Greg Lemond. He starts the chapter with the four words “We knew no fear” which summed up his attacking approach to racing and implicitly criticises the modern calculating scientific approach were everything is controlled and there are no surprises. And of course criticises the use of aero-bars by Lemond as this was modern and calculating at the time.
He describes the last day of the 1989 Tour as a day of immense sadness, a day of monstrous defeat, as a turning point in his life.
“Ah, I remember you, you’re the guy who lost the Tour de France by eight seconds” “No monsieur, I am the guy who won it twice”
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