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news
Gino Bartali (L) with great rival Fausto Coppi (CC licensed by Tsuru1111-Flickr).jpgIsraeli cycling team to ride war hero Gino Bartali's roads
The Israeli Cycling Academy team will pay tribute to cycling great Gino Bartali later this month by riding on the same roads he did during World War II when he smuggled forged documents that helped save Jews from the Holocaust.
The two-time Tour de France and triple Giro d’Italia champion, whose victories in those races came either side of that conflict, died in 2000 at the age of 85.
However, he never publicly spoke about his wartime exploits during his lifetime, telling his son Andrea: “One does these things and then that's that.”
After his death, it was revealed that the long training rides he undertook during those years acted as a cover to transport documents hidden in the handlebars and seat of his bike.
Whenever he was stopped and searched, he would tell police and soldiers not to touch his bicycle, since it had been precisely calibrated for his requirements.
It also came to light that from 1943 until the city’s liberation the following year, he had hidden a Jewish family in the cellar of his at his home in Florence, which is where the ride by the Israeli team will start on Sunday 20 March, with the riders heading to Assisi in neighbouring Umbria.
The team’s manager, former Saxo Bank rider Ran Margaliot, told the newspaper Corriere Fiorentino: “As representatives of Israel and of its cycling community, we feel a duty to do something special in memory of an extraordinary sportsman who did so much for the Jewish people. We’ll do it in the saddle of a bicycle, our great passion.
“Bartali’s exploits have a universal value, without borders,” he went on. “His was a marvellous gift for all of humanity.”
A devout Catholic known as il Pio – the Pious – Bartali’s endeavours saw him named by the state of Israel as one of the Righteous Among the Nations in 2013, the official recognition of those who risked their lives to help people escape persecution by the Nazis.
> Bartali named to Righteous Among the Nations
On the website of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem, his citation reads: “Bartali, who was a courier for the resistance, came to play an important role in the rescue of Jews within the framework of the network initiated by Dalla Costa and Rabbi Nathan Cassuto.”
Other people to have had the same honour, which includes a tree being planted in their honour at the Yad Vashem memorial, bestowed on them include German businessman Oskar Schindler and Swedish diplomat, Raoul Wallenberg.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- ktache 3 hours 28 min ago
The small frame, the aggressive posture, lots of standover height.
- mctrials23 4 hours 24 min ago
As i've said before, the police should be sued for a lot of money when someone they have knowingly ignored has gone on to commit a serious crime....
- David9694 4 hours 31 min ago
'Bad parking' blocks firefighters multiple times on same emergency call-out...
- David9694 4 hours 35 min ago
Cambridgeshire boy, 13, crashes Audi into garden wall after taking it from home...
- Adam Sutton 5 hours 21 min ago
Good stuff. Now do it on cycleway C9 through Hammersmith to Chiswick.
- mark1a 5 hours 30 min ago
It's technically allowed but it's not known as "London's Orbital Car Park" for nothing.
- Dogless 6 hours 38 min ago
You're defending bombing hospitals and refugee camps and starving children.
- mattw 9 hours 18 min ago
Used car salesman is a complete attention-seeking plank....
- tubasti 9 hours 35 min ago
I don't know if they're any better, but they's certainly become more boring.
- FionaJJ 10 hours 1 min ago
At risk of being cynical, and stereotyping the police, it's so they don't have to leave the comfort of their panda cars and pursue on foot when...
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10 comments
Actually, cycling and politics are thoroughly linked. Poulidor or Anquetil, anyone? The Tour de France started as a political ploy, a part of a Dreyfus-affair-related power play.
That being said, if you want to separate your cycling from your politics, stop pushing your politics into cycling. The idea that something is political and therefore not cycling related solely because it involves Israel (or Palestine) is simply unsporting. An Israeli ride in Italy remembering one of cycling's great champions, who also happened to be a magnificent human being, is just a good thing. As is, say, a ride by a Malaysian accross Eurasia to support Palestinian kids:
http://road.cc/content/news/139592-student-leaves-university-bike-and-11...
Both are newsworthy cycling stories, the kind at least this regular road.cc reader wants to read about.
Israel didn't even exist when Gino risked his life to save those he had no spiritual interest in. Humanity is a wonderful thing.
It's perfectly possible to (rightly) criticize the Israeli govt and their policies towards the Palestinians but to recognize this as a genuine celebration of Bartali and the heroic acts he carried out during the war.
But then again that takes nuance, so many people think in binary.
Well said, Arfa.
Perhaps people should put their own prejudices / political agendas aside for a moment and consider this in the context of what happened in 1940's Europe.
Israel is constantrly justifying it's own contemporary inhumane treatment of Palestinaians and the theft of their land (according to the United Nations) by harking back to WW2. The creation of this Cycling Academy is a cynical piece of PR to prop-up the image Israel wants to present to the World of percecution victimhood. Ironically they have stoked the flames of violence and death for generations in the Middle East. If this sort of cynical politics is introduced into the peloton very ugly things will happen. Cycling is not about politics.
Good grief. This is an article paying tribute to a man only interested in humanity using his bike to help those he could have quite easily have pedalled past. If you seriously see it as something else then take a good look at your prejudices.
They could try riding around the west bank first, where they'd fine innumerable checkpoints stopping them from getting more than a few miles without hours of waiting, but that's okay it's for safety right?
This is quite simply Israeli propaganda - 'As representatives of Israel' is the direct quote you use. There is absolutely NO room in cycling for politics - certainly not violently divisive politics. Giving publicity to this Israeli Government hearts and minds program (aka ICA) is inviting disaster as well as propping up a government that has been denounced repeatedly by the United Nations and impartial aid groups across the World.
Do we really want MIddle East politics intertwined with professional cycling? By reporting on the ICA you are playing with fire, and being incredibly naive.
i bet it pays well to the site
In a sport with a long history of stubbornly moral characters stoically set against the swaying tides, few if any stood out as much as Gino. Legend.