Golden Lily. Last Tuesday, at the Carmagnini tavern restaurant from the '500s, in Calenzano. Awards and awardees, selectors and winners, a cycling celebration. At the table, with Roberto Poggiali. Among croutons and straccetti, memories and stories - his own - of that cycling from the Sixties and Seventies.

BELGIUM – "Tour of Belgium 1967. For the northern countryside, we were away for a month. While Gimondi and I shared hotels, rooms, races, my wife was staying in Villa d'Almè with Tiziana, Felice's wife. Cold, rain, wind: of my team, Salvarani, I remained the only one racing. I enjoyed the monopoly: sports director, team car, mechanic, and masseur, all just for me. But alone I would have accomplished nothing. At the top of the classification was Carmine Preziosi, an Italian emigrated to Belgium. Giorgio Albani, who managed Preziosi in Molteni, approached me: 'If you give us a hand...' I gave it to him. Preziosi won. And Albani was generous".

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS – "1973 World Championships in Barcelona. Gathered in a hotel room, Nino Defilippis, national team coach, assigned us our roles: I was supposed to stay close to Franco Bitossi. In the elevator, Gimondi told me: 'I understand and respect the choice to help Bitossi, but remember that I am here too'. A photo captures us at the start: Gimondi embraces me. Halfway through the race, Franco confessed he wasn't feeling great, freed me from my commitment to him, and pushed me to stay close to Gimondi. And that's what I did. Until the last lap. 600 meters from the finish, I heard the speaker's cry announcing Gimondi's victory. Me, ninth".

TOUR - "Tour de France 1975. To Waldemaro Bartolozzi, Filotex sports director, I allowed myself to say that to get space in newspapers, especially Italian ones, we would have had to do better than Eddy Merckx, impossible or almost, but at least Gimondi. We started great: Francesco Moser first in the Charleroi time trial and first yellow jersey, five days in the yellow jersey, then another stage win by Francesco. On the tenth stage arriving in Pau, 206 km, on the Soulor Francesco dropped off, I waited for him, together we came back under, downhill, Francesco in front and me behind, we ended up on the ground, injured but still convinced, in a group that included Merckx in the yellow jersey, Poulidor, Thevenet, Battaglin, Van Impe, the best. In the finale, I went straight, at 400 meters I turned and discovered that behind me was not Francesco but Gimondi. Result: he first, me second, Danguillaume third, dropped, then the others. At dinner, we Filotex were in the same hotel as Bianchi. At the end of dinner, those from Bianchi uncorked a bottle of champagne not to toast Gimondi's victory, but to celebrate Poggiali's defeat. Amid allusions and giggles, they were talking badly about me. Until Gimondi grabbed a knife, tapped it against a glass calling for attention and ordering silence, and began: 'Now I speak. Poggiali is a Tuscan, indeed, a Florentine, he may have his merits and his flaws. But know that what he has done for me - alone - in six years, you - in eight - will never do in your career'. And he concluded: 'Go to bed and be ashamed'. Who reported this to me? Giancarlo Ferretti, the morning after".

(end of the first episode - to be continued)