May 2002. The Giro d'Italia was starting in the Netherlands, in Groeningen. I had asked permission to keep a "domestique's diary", permission granted, provided it would be published not in the print newspaper but on the Internet site, better - I thought - so it will remain forever. I went to the airport, it was provincial, a couple of sheds, teams arriving in dribs and drabs, riders in clusters. I had chosen the rider with the least suitable surname for a cyclist: Scarponi, Michele Scarponi from Acqua & Sapone-Cantina Tollo, jersey number 17. Curious, amused, carefree, he immediately said yes. It would be the first Giro d'Italia for both of us.

Every time Scarponi is mentioned, one starts from the end, overwhelmed and annihilated by his end, by his death, at a roundabout, crushed by a van driven by a fellow townsman, who knew him, but blinded by the sun, did not see him. That's why I started by remembering the beginning - the beginning of our acquaintance and friendship -, just as Alessandra Giardini began Scarponi's story from the beginning, the beginning of Michele's life. "Cantalupo is a bar, a dance hall, a kindergarten, a textile factory, about twenty houses, many many fields. A few ditches, some trees, and lots of sky. Michele would race around everywhere, never stopping for a moment. He was born a leader. When they finally put him to bed in the evening, he would suddenly switch off, exhausted".

This is the third book about Michele Scarponi: after two anthologies ("Dear Michele - a life Scarponi-style", the first part in 2021, the second in 2023), here is "Michele Scarponi - deep as a climb" (192 pages), written by Giardini and also wanted by the Michele Scarponi Foundation to remember him, pass on his arc, perhaps also to teach because every existence can be a lesson, and in any case to continue walking the road, but a road that respects those who appear smaller and weaker, who are more fragile and defenseless. A long story through family and friends, races and riders, Giros and Tours, Liège and Lombardy, Sassotetto and Etna, Colle Gallo and Rifugio Gardeccia, altars and dust, including the 18-month suspension for "use or attempted use of prohibited method". Doping. Thus the falls and the recoveries. "Deep as a climb" is a beautiful title, conveying not only the routes most suited to Michele's technical characteristics, but also everything that exists before and after, in front and behind, above and below, suffering, sacrifices, renunciations, but also secrets, mysteries, silences. A life, indeed.

Scarponi would smile and laugh, joke and bluff. Scarponi was an actor on a bicycle, a failed comedian, an animated cartoon. Scarponi had an immediate, instinctive comeback, and a mobile, plastic face with special effects. Scarponi was generous, he spread joy, he spread good humor. Scarponi seemed to take everything with a sense of lightness, perhaps too much. Yet that time I called him for an interview, he got truly angry, because he would have wanted a serious, banal, boring interview, like those done with other supposed champions, I explained that his beauty was spontaneity, then who knows if he did it out of friendship, or conviction, or resignation, but the interview was "Scarponi-style", the result hilarious, halfway between "Zelig" and "Colorado", between surrealism and cabaret, between Battista by Achille Campanile and the domestique of Gianni Rodari. Because he, Michele, was exactly like that: special, particular, unique.

NB The book is not sold in bookstores. To pre-order, you must make a minimum donation of 50 euros (but if you pick it up at the office in Jesi or Filottrano, you can make a cash donation and collect the book) or 55 euros if you want it delivered home by courier; send the bank transfer receipt. Here are the details for the bank transfer: Fondazione Michele Scarponi – ETS IBAN IT81N0854937360000000040274 Banca di credito cooperativo di Filottrano Reason: Donation Michele