Our hearts are filled with sadness and pain: Vito Di Tano, a great cyclocross champion and embodiment of simplicity, has passed away. "Dad has flown to heaven" is the message one of his children sent to patron Paolo Guerciotti at 0:46 AM today, Wednesday, February 5, 2025.

Vito Di Tano was born in Monopoli, Puglia, on September 23, 1954, and lived in Fasano. For 18 years, he had been suffering from scleroderma, a disease he had learned to live with. Unfortunately, on August 28, 2024, he was also diagnosed with a malignant lung tumor. After months of suffering, Di Tano could not make it and passed away in his Fasano home, defeated by an almost insurmountable illness.

He is mourned by his children Maria Grazia, Alessandro (a cross-country rider in Guerciotti jersey) and Sara, grandchildren Giulia, Livia, Enea, and Micaela, and countless sports enthusiasts. Vito Di Tano had linked the most beautiful years of his career to Paolo Guerciotti's society and family.

It should be noted that Di Tano was also an excellent road cyclist, particularly with the Fiorella Sports Group, to the point of earning a national team call-up. However, Di Tano achieved his greatest satisfactions in cyclocross. He raced in Paolo Guerciotti's team – currently named Fas Airport Services Guerciotti Premac – from January 1978 to February 1990.

Di Tano brought immense joy to the Guerciotti team, including victories in the Amateur Cyclocross World Championships in 1979 in Saccolongo and 1986 in Lembeek, Belgium. Two World Championships won in the rain, in deep mud, on courses with extensive sections to be covered carrying the bike. Vito's palmares in Guerciotti jersey is enhanced by 6 Italian titles. In cyclocross, he achieved 173 victories, mostly in international competitions, and 56 on the road. In 1979, he received the Gold Medal for Sports Merit. In 2010, CONI awarded him the Bronze Palm.

For many years, Vito held the position of sports director for Fas Airport Services-Guerciotti-Premac. "We are all saddened by this loss," says Paolo Guerciotti: "Vito was first my rider, then our DS. But above all, he was always my best friend. A bond I never created with any other rider. The friendship that connected us was brotherly and went beyond cycling. He was not just a champion on the bike, but a great man, rich in values. Vito leaves a huge void in my heart, in that of my family, and in all of cycling. I'm only sorry he couldn't enjoy Mattia Agostinacchio's World Championship victory, a historic goal that could have represented the seal of his career as a DS in the last year he wanted to do it. Now from above, Vito will watch over us."

Here are the thoughts of Gioele Bertolini, current Italian Elite Cyclocross Champion, loyal standard-bearer of Fas Airport Services – Guerciotti – Premac: "I will miss Vito very much, for me he was like a second father and always had words of comfort for me, we spoke every week."