Fausto Coppi
(Castellania, Alessandria 1919 - Tortona 1960)
The Champion of Champions won 110 races and 53 of them he opened up
a lead on the other competitors. His lonely arrival on the important
finishing lines was announced by a famous historic sentence that
stated: " A man, alone, at the top of the race, his jersey is
white and light-blue, his name is Fausto Coppi". The great
cyclist won the Tour de France twice in 1949 and in 1952, and the
Giro d'Italia for five times (in 1940, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953);
moreover, he was one of the five world cyclists, along with Merckx,
Roche, Hinault and Indurain to win both Giro and Tour in the same
year. He won the Milan-Sanremo for three times (1946, 1948, 1949),
the Giro of Lombardia (1946-1949, 1954), for five times, the
National G.P. twice (1946, 1947), a Paris-Roubaix (1950) and Freccia
Vallone (1950). He died of malaria, not diagnosed in time, caught
when he travelled to a region of central Africa that. His cyclist
history, marked by an alliance-rivalry with Bartali, by the ups and
downs of his private life and by a secret relation with the
"white lady", made the legendary man as the most
representative Italian figure of the 50's.
