Cottur Passes on

"Davey Crockett" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Sadly we learn of the death of Giordano Cottur in Italy at the age of
91

Not so well known, perhaps, because he tended to be eclipsed by his
contemporaries, Bartali and Coppi, he was a valliant contender
nevertheless having finished third twice times in the Giro d'Italia

I'm very sad to hear that. I interviewed him four years ago. He was 87 but
still working full-time. We hoped to film him in a hotel room at the fourth
floor, but unfortunately the elevator was out of order. No trouble: he
almost sprinted un the stairs. When I asked him if he was still riding he
answered: yes, of course, but in the last few month we worked day and night
to launch a new mountainbike and I had hardly time to ride more than two or
three times a week. But now that were more or less ready, I'm hope I can go
soon to the mountains again. I became also clear that he was still very well
known in Trieste. When we asked the manager if we could film him in his
hotel, he answered he would be honoured if Cottur would be his guest and his
whole staff was ready to recieve him. Of course, we talked a lot about his
career and he said: I have never been as good as Bartali or Coppi and yet I
think I deserved to have won the Giro once. I quite agree. May he rest in
peace.

Benjo Maso

Today, at about two o'clock, Trieste was stirringly splendid,
with its delicate cobalt blue sea, a white-hot sun and
waving flags as far as the eye can see: the red, white and
green fluttering everywhere. It's been quite some years since
we had seen such a sight.

They shouted: "Hurrah for Coppi!" but it was something else
they wanted to say, "Hurrah for Bartali!" and it was something
else they were referring to, and not to Bartali. "Hurrah for
the Giro's little guys, hurrah for Cottur, hurrah for Leoni!"
they shouted, and it was always something else the people of
Trieste referred to today, something that had more grandeur,
that's felt more painfully, and that by now they had become
accustomed to keeping well-hidden within themselves; today
they could at last roar it openly. And the racers, with
numbers on their backs, understood that they had all become
equal, that they were only Italians and no longer champions,
locomotives, human torpedoes; as one, they push forward amid
all those powerful waves of love, forgetting they were
enemies.

- Dino Buzzati, Coppi versus Bartali at the 1949 Tour of Italy