Giro delle Regioni of 2003. It was the Giro d'Italia for amateurs, but the brand could not be used because it was owned by Gazzetta dello Sport. So, Giro delle Regioni, owned by l'Unità. Cycling was a daily sport for daily newspapers.

Saturday, April 26. First stage, Varazze-Cinquale Montignoso (cycling teaches geography), 171 km long. Starting with the ups and downs of the Aurelia, the Bracco in the second half, finish on the seafront. Fragmented group. Victory went to Russian Vladimir Gusev ahead of Slovenian Kristjan Fait and Frenchman Geoffroy Lequatre. Dropped, very late, last, very tired, solitary, very confused, the Cameroonian François Talla. After crossing the finish line, instead of stopping, Talla surprisingly continued. Perhaps the barriers had already been removed, perhaps the banner was being taken down, so much so that Talla must have thought it was an intermediate checkpoint. Especially since he saw, in front of him, finally, a large group of riders. With an extreme effort, he managed to join them. And a little further ahead, in Viareggio, he crossed another finish line. But he hadn't realized it was the finish line of another race: the Gran Fondo della Versilia.

Talla, a rider of some experience (30 years old, 30th in the final classification of Tour du Faso 2001, 28th in 2002, that year also retired from the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, Australian triumph, first Stuart O'Grady, second Cadel Evans, third Baden Cooke), didn't even have time to understand his mistake, overwhelmed by the celebration in his honor. Since he was wearing the Cameroonian national jersey, yellow and green with white writing, Talla was awarded (cycling is a generous sport) as the competitor from the most distant country and received a silver medal, a tin cup, an advertising cap, and a local salami. He accepted the medal, cup, and cap, but not the salami, perhaps all this seemed enough and therefore too much (and too bulky), so he gave the salami "to a gypsy girl" (as an Ansa agency reported) who was watching the celebration. The gesture was highly appreciated. At that point, Talla had definitively won over the Gran Fondo della Versilia crowd and was carried in triumph.

Meanwhile, his teammates and Giro delle Regioni organizers had lost track of him. Probably Eugenio Bomboni, born in Florence, adopted in Rome, a journalist for l'Unità, who - who could blame him? - had preferred the open spaces of sports organizations to the closed newsroom, had already started calling hospitals, carabinieri, police, civil protection. Volcanic, sometimes gruff, but brilliant and lively, perhaps Bomboni was losing hope when, only in the evening, thanks to a report from the Gran Fondo della Versilia organizers, Talla was recovered by two Giro delle Regioni organization staff and brought back to the hotel by his teammates.

From that day, nothing more would be known about him, disappeared even from the most authoritative sites, like www.procyclingstats.com, which catalog races across the entire planet.

It is one of the hundred chapters of my book "Black Roads" (Ediciclo), dedicated to African cycling and cycling in Africa. And it's one of the stories I propose during presentations, because it's so adventurous that it seems invented, yet it's true, proof that in cycling there's no need to add anything. Pure chronicle is more than enough to surpass fantasy and imagination.

One evening I was in San Donà di Piave, homeland not only of Moreno Argentin but also of Simone Cadamuro (whom I later called to recount his amazing adventures and misadventures as a flat-land sprinter, but a "slow rider" on climbs). At the end, while chatting with future readers, a man approached me showing me his phone screen: "See? It's Talla!" It seemed like a joke. But the man insisted: "He's my employee, he works as a courier in Padua". At this point, the revelation seemed like a gift from heaven. So I gave him my number and asked him, if everything was true and not made up, to have Talla call me the next day.

(end of first episode - to be continued)