He was the patron, chosen by the patron, the real one, the unreachable one: Vincenzo Torriani. He remained passionate about cycling until his final days Carmine Castellano, whom I was proud to call "Elo", as only true friends were permitted to do. He passed away quietly, after savoring Tadej Pogacar's triumph on the roads of "his" Sanremo. After having read about it, after having discussed it, after having debated it with his most trusted friends, tracing visions and assessments of a life that led him to do "the most beautiful job in the world", which is not being a lawyer, but organizing races and cycling events.

A few years ago he had put down in writing the story of his life. In "All the Pink of My Life" there is all of Elo, all the passion he lived for the sport of cycling in thirty years of pink involvement, and from which his great passion for our sport shines through. A nearly modest book, where he tells his story with swift, unadorned brushstrokes. The memories are expressed with rapid journalistic cuts, pointing to the essence of things, without frills or affected pleasantries with connections and references that make the subject comprehensible even for those not strictly in the trade. He told his story and continued to nourish himself with cycling matters, the only things capable of alleviating the weight of the years and an existence that had become immobility and silence.

Carmine Castellano was born on March 7, 1937 in Sant'Agnello di Sorrento, in the province of Naples. A lawyer and cycling enthusiast, as president of Velo Sport Sant'Agnello he organized, together with his lifelong friend Alfonso Iaccarino (owner of Don Alfonso, one of the world's most exclusive Michelin-starred restaurants), a National Amateur Championship. For this experience he is called to take technical responsibility for the Stage Committee of the eighth stage of the 1974 Giro d'Italia, Potenza-Sorrento. Having met Vincenzo Torriani this way, he becomes his point of contact for the southern stages.

From 1989 he enters permanently into the organization of the Giro d'Italia, first assisting Torriani then as sole director (from 1993 to 2003). In 1996 he has the idea of starting the Giro d'Italia from Athens, where one hundred years earlier the modern Olympics were born, three days after the birth of "his" Gazzetta dello Sport. "I spotted him for the first time under one of the gigantic Ficus magnolioides, nature's masterpieces that tower over the waterfront of Reggio Calabria. He was there, with bulging calves and the prominent belly of a Sunday amateur cyclist – Candido Cannavò would recount – the kind who finish a climb in a tavern. But as soon as he turns around, what do I discover? It's the counselor, the commander, the man who guided the Giro d'Italia for sixteen years. It's Carmine Castellano, called Elo, wearing a yellow jersey that reads 'Gruppo Sportivo Corsera' and a pink helmet with the Gazzetta dello Sport logo. Driving to Calabria, he had placed his racing bike in the trunk. At the wheel was another historic figure of the Giro, Alberto Della Torre, Torriani's driver, to whom I am linked by a nightmarish memory: the descent from Pordoi, in 1984, with that madman Moser on your tail coming at you. The curves were moans on the brink of the abyss. My stomach was lost. Torriani, unperturbed, held his lit cigarette in his mouth. 'I no longer have the commitments I once had – Castellano says – so I try to dry myself out a bit by pedaling'. Nostalgia? In the right measure. The Giro was his life and I believe he could still avail himself, in the right terms and contexts, of his extraordinary experience. I remind him of a sensational episode: when Cipollini, at the finish line of Sanremo won by Fondriest, lifted his bicycle and hurled it onto the rear window of his car, smashing it. 'Then Mario apologized to me. He's made that way...'

Carmine never took offense, he had the gift of reflection, mediation and patience. Elo was made that way too. He was made well.

To Mrs. Marisa, to his children Luigi and Milena, and to all those – and there are many – who loved him, our most heartfelt condolences from the editorial staff of tuttoBICI and tuttobiciweb.it