We, tattered like homeless and sweaty like dromedaries in the late afternoon press room, after the long stage, him fresh and cologne-scented, like just out of a beauty salon, although descending from the team car after 7-8 hours of racing behind his riders. Jacket and tie even at 40 degrees, without a crease, without a halo, without anything that suggests wear and fatigue. Let alone old age. He's evergreen, in mood and appearance, thinks optimistically, confronts with kindness, has a greeting for everyone, powerful and powerless, the latter in the good sense of those who count nothing or don't want to count anything in the world of inflated egos.

Gianni Savio, there is Gianni Savio. He comes to tell every single moment, every single fold, every single detail of his race: how many attacks, how many breakaways, how many placements. And also how many punctures, how many falls, how many damn accidents, otherwise maybe this time we would have taken home the stage.

Not everything he tells each journalist, with Buddhist calm and consistency, makes it into the articles. Time and space are ruthless dictators, only the essential must be put in, decisive things and main faces: for Gianni Savio, there isn't always access and visibility. But it doesn't matter, that's not what drives him to the press room: he knows that a serious team must inform everyone, the greatest correspondent and the most humble chronicler, that's right, then the media are free to sift through the material and choose. If it happens that Gianni Savio's stories end up on a page, or in a headline, or in a video, he'll be the first to thank. He's not obliged, but he always does it, because they can tear everything from him, even his nails one by one, but no one will ever tear courtesy from Gianni Savio. The true, sincere, substantial kind, certainly not the hypocritical pose of the cunning opportunist.

I speak of Gianni in the present because he will never be past, at least in my memories. Even now that he has weighed anchor for the last time, raising the sails of the longest journey, without return, unknown and mysterious like a destiny. He has departed and already a void is seen here, the place of cycling of humanity, of common sense, of some healthy values, now evicted from the cycling of watts and UCI points. But above all the empty place of a free soul.

We spend our entire lives trying to become ourselves, to become what we truly are: some never succeed, many don't even start. As far as I'm concerned, Gianni arrived there well in advance, because since I knew him as a young man, he has never changed by a comma, he never added masks, he was that and he remains that. I am no one to judge, but at least I want to acknowledge this about him.

Certainly, he doesn't have great trophies to his credit, not a powerful team, but many boys picked from the street and transformed into champions, even before becoming men, I believe that's worth even more. His quality craftsmanship, apparently, is no longer contemplated in the current and future designs of big sport. Everything mega and everything giga. Many are happy not to see those harlequin jerseys with a thousand sponsors anymore, but no one knows who will take the place of these workshops, these colleges, these academies, these realities where boys can grow without obsessions and without chains. Gianni believed in this until the end, until the last moment, faithful to his ideas and consistent with his possibilities. Free in this too. I don't think everyone can say the same. I really don't think so.

Then there's the rest, what he leaves to all those who knew him and loved him. I don't like - I really can't - using the dead to indirectly talk about myself. I keep my small piece of Gianni, my small part of Gianni, after all 35 years of crossed journeys, as everyone must hold onto their things. And this can be enough, this orphaned and widowed affection, intimate and mute can be enough. The real Gianni belongs to his wife and daughters, they alone can say, on the wings of a mild melancholy, what we have lost.