COPPI
Il Campionissimo rode professionally for two decades either side of the war. His freakish talent spanned four generations over what remains, unquestionably, the golden age of cycling. Not only did he revolutionise much of its methodology, but his splenetic rivalry with Gino Bartali fired the collective imagination as never before. Since Fausto’s demise their battle has come to assume all manner of (largely delusional) political and cultural symbolism. For all that the fact remains that it took place at a time of unprecedented social upheaval. As agrarian, Catholic Italy began to embrace urbanisation and modernity, the two cyclists were, thrillingly, hammer and tongs. Never before – and in truth never again – would racing be this good, or generate this much electricity. All of the above, however, are matters of public record, and the last thing cycling needs is another distended 21st century Coppi biography. Rather I think it time for those who were actually there. Those who actually know… Their careers, like those of Astrua and Defilippis, were simultaneously conditioned, undermined and dignified by Coppi’s. In that respect it was they, the mortals whose toil his genius both ridiculed and sustained, who were most instrumental in creating his mythic status. They were the people closest to him, and they remain the people best qualified to preserve the tapestry upon which his legend was weaved. If in so doing they unpick some of the myths which have been grafted onto it over the decades, then so much the better. As such this collection is produced in deference to the cyclists they were, and to the men they became. They weren’t touched by greatness as was Fausto, but that’s not to say that they gave any less of themselves. With any luck it will survive them and be read by the descendants they will never know, by the children of their grandchildren. For it is to them, fundamentally, that the book belongs.
If the first motivation for this ‘work’ is visceral, the second is rather more gratuitous. So popular was bike racing in post-war Italy that a small army of press photographers – some of them extraordinarily gifted – charted its every move. A handful of the images they created are iconic, ubiquitous even, but nowhere amid the Coppi liturgy has there been a legitimate, cohesive rendition of their work. The vast majority has remained unpublished, and that has always struck me as a travesty. This book is intended, probably conceitedly, to remedy that at least in part. Though I don’t profess to be an expert, I would attest that many of the images contained herein are genuine works of art; genuine masterpieces of composition. Gratuitous then, but no less compelling for it. Though most of the pictures here remain unsigned, the book is intended as homage to the likes of Luigi Bertazzini, Carlo Martini and the great Vito Liverani. For it was also they, and the journalists with whom they worked, who created the legend of Fausto Coppi for us. I hope you enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed my small part in making it. Herbie Sykes Turin, July 2012
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