Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation
Aili McConnon
Language: English
Pages: 336
ISBN: 0307590658
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The inspiring, against-the-odds story of Gino Bartali, the cyclist who made the greatest comeback in Tour de France history and secretly aided the Italian resistance during World War II
Gino Bartali is best known as an Italian cycling legend who not only won the Tour de France twice but also holds the record for the longest time span between victories. In Road to Valor, Aili and Andres McConnon chronicle Bartali’s journey, from an impoverished childhood in rural Tuscany to his first triumph at the 1938 Tour de France. As World War II ravaged Europe, Bartali undertook dangerous activities to help those being targeted in Italy, including sheltering a family of Jews and smuggling counterfeit identity documents in the frame of his bicycle. After the grueling wartime years, the chain-smoking, Chianti-loving, 34-year-old underdog came back to win the 1948 Tour de France, an exhilarating performance that helped unite his fractured homeland.
Based on nearly ten years of research, Road to Valor is the first book ever written about Bartali in English and the only book written in any language to explore the full scope of Bartali’s wartime work. An epic tale of courage, resilience, and redemption, it is the untold story of one of the greatest athletes of the twentieth century.
Lidia Cooks from the Heart of Italy: A Feast of 175 Regional Recipes
Fodor's Venice and Northern Italy
Falling Palace: A Romance of Naples
Frommer's Florence, Tuscany and Umbria (Frommer's Complete Guides)
Jersey” Félix Lévitain, “Gino Bartali était imbattable dans le Tour 48. Mais l’épreuve par le Parisien et L’Équipe a revelé des talents nouveaux pour la formation tricolore,” Le Parisien Liberé, July 27, 1948. 37 Bartali’s Tour record for longest span between victories The list of all Tour winners can be viewed on the official Tour de France website, www.letour.fr. 38 “The war ruined us old men” Granzotto, “Bartali vinse Marie,” 3. 39 “Everyone in their life” Gino Bartali, “La mia lotta contro.
Slim-figured, with mahogany curls. From the moment he saw her, Gino was smitten. Adriana came from a conservative family who lived on the northeast edge of Florence. Her father had served in the artillery in World War I and now worked as a railway administrator. Her mother was a housewife. When Gino first set eyes on Adriana, she was working in downtown Florence near Palazzo Vecchio in a shop called 48, a type of early department store that sold all kinds of fabric for forty-eight centesimi. Her.
Kilometers from the finish. It’s over.” And Gino, with his left hand clutching his kidneys, began to pedal. Rossi, whose legs and arms looked “like bloody steaks,” was rushed off to the local hospital. To no one’s surprise, he quit the Tour. In Briançon, Weckerling crossed the finish line first. Farther back, Gino did complete the stage, but lost nine minutes because of the accident. “I was mute, physically mute; I raced with my mind alone,” Gino explained later. By the evening, Gino seemed to.
Losing his wife and unborn child. Somewhere along the line, the collective weight of such concerns about his family and his secret work for the cardinal began to cloud Gino’s mind. “Try to line up, day after day … without joy, without satisfaction, in a state of depression and continual anxiety,” he said. Distressed and withdrawn, Gino grew more and more restless and volatile—telltale signs of a condition known at the time as “war neurosis.” (Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, was not.
Ensure that any action the party took would be deliberate and considered, rather than a rushed reaction to provocation. Leading Communist deputies were dispatched around the country to pacify regional party members, union leaders, and their membership. The same men who had once preached fire and brimstone in the Chamber of Deputies now found themselves trying to douse the ravaging flames of discontent. No one envied them their task. The Communists had been such obvious and public victims of an.