Meri, but not forever. Meri Malucchi has left us. Fifteen months of fighting, challenging, battling, an all-out war of resistance, besieged by a cancer that gradually stripped her of everything, except her will to live.

Meri was the soul of the CanNibali, the historic supporter group of Vincenzo as well as all the Mastromarco boys, from Damiano Caruso to Alberto Bettiol, with Bruno Malucchi as the gentleman president, a reference figure - not just in cycling - at the foot of San Baronto. The CanNibali would chase their comet star through the Alps and Pyrenees, settling on a hairpin turn or a straight road, parking campers and pitching tents, firing up grills and uncorking bottles, hosting everyone for free, even supporters of Giovanni Visconti, Nibali's eternal rival, from Sicily to Tuscany with equal love, passion, and rivalry.

Meri was 58 years old. And she had the gift of smiling. And smiling, she would tell stories, reveal, welcome, and smiling, she would organize, set up, liberate, and smiling, she would celebrate Vincenzo's victories and those of his opponents. To Meri and the CanNibali we owe the spontaneous street parties and the announced dancing gatherings, the popular dinners and flying supplies, the indispensable prize called Tandem conceived in an evening by Stefano Benvenuti, and the inflatable Shark not only at the Giro, but also at the Vuelta and the Tour. To Meri and the CanNibali we owe that pure, true, authentic, genuine, joyful passion (something similar was later seen only for Alan Marangoni, and those who traveled those roads can confirm it).

And to think that the first love in sports for Meri was not cycling, but volleyball. As an athlete and coach, as a manager and companion, as a symbol and flag. During her fifteen-month ordeal, Meri raised countless walls by forging alliances and complicity, between solidity and solidarity, spreading energy and dispensing optimism, she herself transformed by the illness, but not in her will, spirit, or hope. We had already written about Meri on Tuttobiciweb, when even Tadej Pogacar joined the group raising the wall. For those who always followed Meri on Facebook (her motto: "Life is a special gift. Try not to waste time. You don't know how much you have!"), her last messages were as cutting and brutal as stilettos: "Life is beautiful!!! Enjoy it! Don't deprive yourself of what you want and can do! Have fun, go all out! One day you might not be able to do it anymore, as happened to me!" (July 16), "I'll try!!! I'll try to hold on, my opponent is strong and I must hope in medicine! Doctors and medicine are my most important allies in this difficult championship. I accepted an experimental therapy. An almost mandatory choice to keep hope alive. At this point, waiting is the most difficult part. And now I'm in this phase. I hope to start soon to have the weapons to fight" (July 24), until the final "It will go as it was meant to go" (August 2). She passed away on August 24th.

That's how it went. For those who knew her, for those who shared her path or even just a single turn, for those who raised the wall, she was a small, memorable fortune. And this privilege will remain. Meri forever.