He began as a domestique, he ended as a captain. He started as a helper, he finished as a winner. He began in a gray jersey, he ended in a pink jersey. He began as Vasco Bergamaschi, he ended as Singapore. Winner of the 1935 Giro d'Italia. And 90 years after what would remain his greatest joy, his San Giacomo delle Segnate pays tribute to him on Wednesday, April 9, at 9 pm, in the amphitheater of Monsignor Gilioli square, free entry.

That Giro. Eighteen stages, but two divided into two half-stages, total 20, almost 3600 km of roads from Milan to Milan, dropping down to Bari and emerging up to Sestriere. Among Binda and Guerra, Di Paco and Olmo, the French Archambaud and the Belgian Demuysere, he was the one who prevailed, Vasco Bergamaschi. He was 25 years old, born in San Giacomo delle Segnate in the Lower Mantua area, and had started racing as a bakery apprentice. On a bike as heavy as a gate, he was noticed by Learco Guerra, first convinced to combine bread with cycling, then to make cycling his daily bread. He became "the flying baker". With little schooling (in a postcard, after winning the King's Cup in 1930, he used the absolute superlative "I send you the most best wishes"), an amateur in the Nicolò Biondo of Carpi (the team that would also launch Ercole Baldini), professional in Maino (later in Bianchi and Viscontea), domestique of the Human Locomotive, Vasco was already Singapore: almond-shaped eyes from birth, boxer's nose after a fall, he looked oriental when China sounded like a legend and Japan like a fairy tale. As a domestique, Bergamaschi would sacrifice himself: push, pull, chase, get water and carry bottles, and risk his life. Like in the 1934 Giro, when on a descent, to save Guerra he went off the road, crashed into a tree, broke a collarbone and ended the race in hospital. At the final arrival in Milan, greeting his captain Guerra as the winner, he was also there. But at his own expense. Maino had refused to reimburse him.

A year later, at the 1935 Giro, history did a somersault. A lucky breakaway, a well-judged sprint, an unexpected victory and an unexpected pink jersey from the first stage. Then Vasco returned, perhaps with relief, to playing the domestique role. The fatal opportunity in Porto Civitanova-L'Aquila: here, on the Forca delle Capannelle, Gino Bartali took off and won his first stage, here Singapore reclaimed the race's lead, which he would not lose in the subsequent 12 stages. First ahead of Martano and Olmo, fourth Guerra, fifth Archambaud, sixth Bertoni and seventh Bartali.

Bergamaschi would return to being a domestique, by original nature, by characteristic modesty, by physical limits. Domestique even in the Italian national team participating in the Tour de France: and to not exhaust him, in 1938 the Federation prevented him from racing the Giro before the Tour.

After World War II, when he had donated golds, silvers and bronzes to the homeland, Vasco started again with cycling, first with a mechanic's shop in Sermide, then again in races, no longer on two human wheels but on four motorized ones, sports director, also of Nino Defilippis and Aldo Moser, the first of the Trentino dynasty, of Cleto Maule and Tranquillo Scudellaro, but also of phenomena and unfortunates. "Circuito di Firenze, but in Sesto Fiorentino, in 1962 - Olimpo Paolinelli told me - I gave the lead-out to Guido Carlesi, who was not from my team. My sports director Vasco Bergamaschi asked me why I had done it. I told him the truth: Carlesi promised me 150,000 lire". To those boys, as Mario Oriani wrote, Singapore acted as a "dry nurse" on the team car "shaped like a torpedo", often sitting "on the car door like an amazon" and watching "the unfolding of the action", for "boys who, more or less, will have to cut their teeth". Which for domestiques, as Bergamaschi knew from his own skin, also meant breaking them.