MEALTIME. RENATO LAGHI, 80 YEARS WITHOUT FEELING THE CHAIN. GALLERY
HISTORY | 12/12/2024 | 08:20 di Marco Pastonesi A long sprint. A year-long sprint. A long chase from idea, from project, to appointment, to day. Saturday, December 7th the celebration, Sunday the 8th the birthday. In his Errano. This is how Renato Laghi celebrated his 80 years with his two families, the one formed by wife, daughters, sons-in-law and grandchildren, and the one composed of friends, companions, cycling colleagues. From Gibì Baronchelli to Italo Zilioli (in a speakerphone call), from Glauco Santoni to Daniele Caroli, from Luigi Castelletti to Giancarlo Toschi, from Walter Gorini to Ginazza Cavalcanti, from Giovanni Fabbri to Vittorio Chiarini, from Alfio Vandi to Michele Coppolillo, from Ercole Baldini's brothers to Pipaza Minardi's son... Affection and friendship, esteem and gratitude, a doubly familiar healthy atmosphere.In this long sprint, "A Million Kilometers by Bike". It's the small book (80 pages of text, 20 of photographs) in which Laghi tells his story. "The bicycle was my passion, my work for several years, the object of my desires", he premises. "I wanted to tell all this, but my wife would say that 'one tells their life story when they're no longer here'", he confides. But with my complicity, he did it. In the dining room and at the table, in the car and on the phone, among photo albums and clipping boxes, always accompanied by the fear of appearing presumptuous. His million kilometers by bike he has traveled, and continues still, from "cinèla" to retiree through amateur and professional racing. Born under bombs in an air-raid shelter. The lightning moment in a Giro di Romagna, Renato not even five years old, Fausto Coppi almost 40, and even that May day the Champion is a man alone in command and his jersey is white and light blue. The first bicycle, an Alpi, purchased with the savings accumulated by collecting, and then reselling to scrap dealers, the shrapnel of war. The first race in Solarolo, someone more cunning who sticks to his wheel and overtakes him just before the finish line. His first triumph at 19, Italian CSI junior champion. He would have at least another day of triumph, at the 1977 Giro d'Italia, the stage from Madonna di Campiglio to San Pellegrino Terme, the photo - hands low on the handlebars, head tucked into shoulders, mouth wide open, bike tilted from pushing on the pedals - was chosen for the cover. Domestique. One of effort, of climbing, of positioning. For Taccone and Ritter, Bitossi and Baronchelli, Paolini and Visentini. "To Bitossi - Laghi recounts - I loved him so much that when he came second at the World Championships in Gap, he was crying on the podium and I was crying in front of the TV". Because domestiques like Laghi, to their captains, offered legs and lungs, but also feelings and emotions. "Visentini, a gentleman, educated and loyal, elegant and talented" - Laghi specifies - "With him we would laugh. He loved me. He was studying to become a ski instructor. When he could, he would go to Tonale Pass". Laghi collected confidences, now he distributes memories. "Taccone had a special character. Fiery, irascible, sometimes explosive. During the Giro d'Italia, in Campitello Matese, he got into a fistfight with Ivan Pierozzi, our teammate at Germanvox, from Lamporecchio. We found them rolling on the hotel floor in the evening. Separated with difficulty, Vito escaped from the hotel". About Laghi, Gianni Mura wrote in the "Gazzetta dello Sport":"Laghi doesn't have what you'd call a herculean physique, but he gives it his all without worrying too much about the details". And when the breakaway ends, "he barely has time to smile, talking is out of the question because he's quite out of breath". Luigi Gianoli, also in the "Gazzetta dello Sport", wrote: "Medium height, thighs swollen enough to make Giambologna's statues jealous, skinny calves, agile in the waist, deep-chested, on a slender body he carries a round little head topped with bristly hair, with a rebellious tuft touching a small and impertinent nose, pointed, or rather turned up like Cleopatra's". Twelve Giri d'Italia, two World Championships in cyclocross, still in the saddle in cycling historicals, Laghi doesn't feel the chain. Not even the chain of his 80 years. PS"A Million Kilometers by Bike" (with a preface by Claudio Gregori and an afterword by Sergio Ghisleni, laid out and printed by Tipografia Faentina) is not for sale. However, maybe, who knows, Renato Laghi has an extra copy. PHOTOS BY IDO TALENTI
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