Even from cycling, in this life that proceeds too vainly, we move further on. It might be discretion, it might be that our past appears a more serious bibliography than the present being browsed, it might be whatever it is, but about Michele Dancelli, a unique memory, twice unique, we can only dictate it beyond his recent passing.

How many times have we written about the oneiric 'Sanremo' of 1970, a legend turned truth, an unparalleled representation of cycling, 55 years and too many springs later, to revive.

Of course, but at the bottom of the emptied memories' glass, of the thunderous applause, for all of them Dancelli like Molteni Torriani like Raschi De Zan like Ormezzano, it was March 21, 1970, the first day of spring of the Dik Dik, at the bottom of the story's outcome that sings, it serves us to remember the lesser Dancelli of a particular day that matters, to decipher his human greatness.

And it's Wednesday, May 24, 1967, and the Giro arrives in Naples and at Arenaccia Willy Planckaert wins the sprint, and Michele Dancelli, still wearing the 'Vittadello' jersey, conquers the pink jersey. Dancelli will be that sunny day the last pink jersey in Naples, moreover, before Eddy Merckx arrives in 1968.

But that day, Dancelli wore a bitter and scratched pink jersey, loaded with doubts in the caravan, because who was wearing it since morning, the Spaniard Gomez del Moral, would lose it only because he was victim of a devastating fall on the Volturno bridge, not far from the finish line, which would determine an insurmountable delay at the arrival.

And Michele Dancelli outdid himself in the post-race, from a young man who as a boy had known much greater hardship than cycling itself, learning as a little mason, going to apologize to Gomez del Moral, lacerated and suffering, a compassion, a wound from skin to heart... 'I didn't attack, I swear, it was Marino Basso and the Belgians of Romeo for Planckaert, I would never have done this cowardice, believe me'. And Gomez del Moral shook his hand, in farewell to the pink jersey and in the certainty of a transparent honesty. That of Michele Dancelli, from Castenedolo, of which today's usurped Italy of sport is only the last province.

Gian Paolo PORRECA