We have always remembered him, perhaps we more than anyone, although we are not the ones to wave around affection records, even on these pages, Carmine Saponetti, the cyclist from Vigne di Sessa Aurunca, and his story.

Yes, to bring back to light that black and white memory of a boy who in 1939 won a stage at the Giro d'Italia, no, two stages, in Rieti and Grosseto. And who has remained since then the first and only cyclist from Campania to be a "winner" - what a beautiful title, even if just for a day's stage - in the century-long history of the Giro.

But this time, on October 25th, Carmine Saponetti will be remembered and honored by sports - not just cycling - from all of Italy, not just united Campania, if the Giro is the only sports festival that unites Italy, much more than Sanremo, and does not divide.

On this occasion, in fact, the municipality of Sessa Aurunca, with the convinced commitment of Mayor Lorenzo Di Iorio and his administration, from Culture Councilor Italo Calenzo to Sports Councilor Lorenzo Fusco, on the occasion of the 25 years since his passing, which occurred in Rome where the cyclist had lived with his family for many years, precisely on October 31st, 2000, will dedicate a day of remembrance to Carmine Saponetti and name a square, a popular recreational area, after him in the small fraction of Sessa where he was born in 1913.

Yes, it wasn't yesterday, it was the day before yesterday, there was no TV and none of what exists today to distort the values of life and sport, but cycling was already there, and in capital letters, and the Giro had only two years earlier known the pink jersey of its infinite devotion, and Carmine Saponetti, a cyclist from Vigne, we are in the Toraglie area, we are on the slopes of the Roccamonfina volcano that from Sessa look down on the Garigliano and the sea, would draw a romantic, intense, engaging, and unforgettable parabola.

Carmine Saponetti, a boy from the South, and let's say it without rhetorical partisanship, we are immune, who would have arrived in Rome by train, an amateur in the ranks of AS Roma, and who with the unexpected jersey of "La Voce di Mantova", but what reverse racism are we talking about today?, blue jersey, would have raced the Giro in '39, and with his qualities as a sprinter and fast rider would have beaten Ruggero Moro first in Grosseto, and subsequently in Rieti even Adolfo Leoni, certainly not a nobody in those glory-dusted sprints...

Carmine Saponetti, two stages but much more, with his performances and records as an amateur on the track over long distances, 50 and 100 kilometers, better than Maurice Richard, in 1940. And the following year that national pursuit final lost by just 140 meters, not an abyss, at the hands of a rising star named Fausto Coppi. And the challenge even, in 1942, for the hour record, in Milan, at the Vigorelli, in those first days of November, November will never be September, which tasted of bombs and hostile planes and ever lower skies, to surpass the limit of the Frenchman Archambaud. He, Carmine Saponetti, would not succeed: by a little. Instead, on November 7th, Fausto Coppi would succeed by 31 meters - 45.798 vs 45.767 - a breath in an hour. Coppi was rising, immense, looming, coruscating, the Second World War. And Carmine Saponetti, the champion from Sessa Aurunca, was scrutinizing in his heart and heartbeat those six years of distance, he was from '13, Coppi from '19, who had established, far more than pedals and talent, their parallel and different destinies.

Many will be in Sessa Aurunca, splendid Alto Casertano, excellent roads to hide on a bike, Campania, that day, local provincial curious cyclists, city men of the Giro, we await Vegni and Castellano, Dagnoni and Pella, who knows maybe they'll give us a new Giro, as long as we'll be here. But of one thing we are ultra-certain, in our soul and thought. That the guest of honor, the first to sincerely applaud the celebration of Carmine Saponetti will be - not far from heaven - Fausto Coppi.

Cyclists never arrive second anywhere.

from tuttoBICI of October