The first stage of that 1965 Giro di Sardegna began with an attack by Taccone after five kilometers and a surge by Anquetil after fifteen. The first hour passed at thirty kilometers per hour, the second slightly faster, a pace that would have been called leisurely, until at km 61, launched by businessman Enrico Uccellini, Gilberto Vendemiati attacked, one of the six unattached riders. And the race ignited.

On the long climb towards Genna Silana, a group formed with Aldo Moser, Adorni and Van Looy, among the nine breakaway riders was also Meo Venturelli, another of the six unattached riders, Uccellini's protégé. When Anquetil and Mugnaini managed to rejoin the nine, Venturelli and Van Looy attacked in a counterattack. At the mountain pass, Venturelli beat Van Looy in the sprint. On the long descent, Venturelli attacked, was caught by Moser, the two worked together and caught up with Van Looy. Three men in breakaway, one of them leading, and it was always Meo, in a day of grace, pulling the pace. The three became two when Moser, about fifty kilometers from the finish, succumbed to the rhythm imposed by Meo. The advantage of Venturelli and Van Looy widened. At the finish – in the account by Rino Negri in the "Gazzetta dello Sport" – "Rik Van Looy, who refuses to lead for several kilometers (and he could because he is not able to suffer pauses and always pedals beautifully) smoothly overtakes Venturelli, who for his part does not even contest it". The average, at this point, approaches forty and a half kilometers per hour. The group arrives scattered more than five minutes back.

Following the Giro di Sardegna for the Rosea was also Bruno Raschi, the Divine One, who signed the piece that opened the front page of the newspaper. Headline: A Backwards Sardegna. Title: Van Looy has already won – Venturelli (superb) second. Subtitle, referring to Meo: is a career restarting? The opening of the piece: "Cycling of all contradictions, absurd and thrilling depending on how you look at it. How long this very particular enthusiasm can last is difficult to say. Perhaps only today".

If the statistical victory went to Van Looy, the moral one (his morality was, also that, particularly singular, as well as quite questionable) belonged to Venturelli. Raschi: "The only one who in theory remained to contest him is an incredible Italian, Romeo Venturelli, a rider who seemed resurrected to us and who tonight proposes again a dilemma which no technician can foresee the solution to, the end. The Venturelli case, in fact, goes beyond the technical plane to the human one and deserves to interest simultaneously the doctor and the psychoanalyst. Behind this singular and perfect athlete, with a structure that still seems intact, behind this boy with surprising reactions, with irreconcilable impulses, Freud and Lombroso should be bothered, so much does their doctrine, their theories interest them…".

Raschi continued by also emphasizing the role of the strategist behind Meo: "But the case, it seems, is much simpler, if it is true that it was a passionate Roman, Enrico Uccellini, a former rider who must obviously not be an empiricist if he succeeded in an undertaking attempted many times and always failed by technicians considered illustrious, like Bartali for example, like Giorgio Albani: if he did alone, with small means of his own, domestic, what others, rich and well-equipped, had not been able to do". Raschi continued also explaining that "today, in the desperate, panoramic landscapes of Genna Silana, it seemed to us to echo behind the Venturelli who was climbing, dragging Van Looy, the thrilling prophecy of Coppi: 'This is a boy to whom nature has granted in abundance the virtues that in their pure state make the champion…'. On the great spirals that in the unfolding of kilometers, among harsh cliffs and rocky phantoms, led to the thousand meters of the Genna Silana Cantoniera, Venturelli seemed to be doing academy at the third degree, the great figure perfectly stretched on the frame, the shoulders almost motionless, the always equal rhythm of the two long levers that caressed the pedals".

(end of the second installment – to be continued)