In the days when the 109th edition of the Giro d’Italia is being raced, eighty years after his third and final victory in the Pink Race and on the occasion of the Jubilee Year of Saint Francis (800 years since his death), sports journalist Sergio Meda restores to the public the most authentic face of "Ginettaccio" Bartali in the book “A Good Man. The Carmelite and Franciscan Spirit of Gino Bartali”. The preface is signed by great Italian cycling champion Francesco Moser, and the postface is by Monsignor Domenico Sorrentino, bishop of Assisi during the years when the Museum of Memory in Assisi was opened.

There are champions who remain carved in time for their sporting achievements, and others who become legend for what they were able to accomplish far from official finish lines. In the days when the stages of the Pink Race succeed one another, now in its 109th edition, eighty years after his last victory in the Giro d’Italia, and on the occasion of the Jubilee Year of Saint Francis 800 years after his death, Gino Bartali returns to race through the pages of “A Good Man. The Carmelite and Franciscan Spirit of Gino Bartali”, the new book by sports journalist Sergio Meda, presented in national preview at the Turin Book Fair.

Sergio Meda recounts: «My first meeting with Gino Bartali coincided with my debut at the Gazzetta dello Sport just days after I was hired by the newspaper. They sent me to the Milan Six-Day race, where Bartali was waiting for me in the paddock. It was 1973. Gino looked at me in amazement: he had never met me before nor had he heard about me; it seemed strange to him that they would send an unknown person to speak with him. I made a poor start, saying to him «Mr. Bartali…» and he scolded me with a curt: «In cycling we all use the informal you, there are no ceremonies».

The volume delves into the depths of "Ginettaccio's" polemical spirit to find within it a Carmelite and Franciscan soul, guided by the simple and solid values of loyalty and honesty. It is the portrait of a man of faith who, in the darkness of the Second World War, became a humanitarian courier, from Florence to Assisi, to save persecuted Jews. In contact with Monsignor Giuseppe Placido Nicolini, bishop of Assisi, and with Don Aldo Brunacci and Father Rufino Niccacci, Gino transported forged documents hidden in the frame of his bicycle, produced by the Brizi printing house in Assisi. In this way he contributed to saving at least 800 Jews, who thanks to those false identities found refuge and escape from Nazi-fascist deportation. "Good deeds are done, but not spoken of" was his mantra, a philosophy of life that led him to act in the shadows to save human lives, with the same determination with which he challenged Coppi on the steepest peaks.

A silent anti-fascist, consistent and faithful to his own conscience, capable of transforming the bicycle — symbol of toil and competition — into an instrument of freedom and salvation. That freedom which had led him, in 1936, to present himself at Palazzo Venezia before Mussolini in casual clothes, with the Catholic Action badge clearly visible on his lapel and without a black shirt — refusing the pressure of those who wanted to force him to join the Party. Even threats of suspension from races and withdrawal of his passport failed to bend him: it was his popularity that defended him and gave him courage and strength.

The book features testimonies from major journalism figures, relatives, and those who knew him closely. On the pages of the Corriere della Sera, Indro Montanelli writes: "Bartali is the De Gasperi of cycling, not because he belonged to the same political party, but because he is made of the same human fabric. He is not 'a' champion, he is 'the' champion, the only one who conceived racing as a sacred mission to which every other activity and pleasure must be sacrificed”.

And again, Gianni Mura: "Bartali was anti-fascist by culture, a peasant culture, practical, not derived from books. His deeply rooted Catholicism knew how to tell him what is good and what is evil. As an honest man he could not tolerate bullies, therefore he was humanly incompatible with fascism".

Touching are the words of his son Andrea: "When he mounted the saddle he was one with the bike, which he loved so much that he would bring it into his bedroom for fear that someone might tamper with it. He talked to it, he cared for it: it was his life, his working tool."

To make this account even more vivid is the preface by Francesco Moser, who recalls an unpublished Bartali: not a distant and nostalgic monument, but a comforting presence, capable of encouraging young talents: «When I too began to race, I moved to Tuscany, the region that baptized me, and I had the opportunity to see Bartali often. He would inquire about young talents, discuss them with Vannucci, the team manager of the Bottegone in Pistoia for which I raced for a couple of years as an amateur. I remember that, at the start of a race, Bartali approached me to say: “I have no advice to give you, you have the right mentality, you never give up”. Some young cyclists were in awe of him: for them he was a monument; I, on the other hand, considered him an excellent example, also because he didn't do like others, a bit boastful, who never forgot to tell you: “In my day…”. He frequently attended minor races, often gave the start, he was a comforting presence in a land where you had to keep your passion for cycling in check».

In the postface Monsignor Domenico Sorrentino reflects on the deeper and lesser-known figure of Gino Bartali, going beyond the sporting myth. Alongside the hero of two wheels and the “Righteous Among the Nations” for the help given to persecuted Jews during the Shoah, emerges a man of intense and reserved faith, who chose not to tell of either his charitable works or his spiritual commitment. In the path of the Museum of Memory in Assisi, conceived and curated by Marina Rosati, Bartali's private chapel becomes a symbol of this inner "beyond": a faith lived in silence, hidden source of his moral strength and his courageous choices. The essay thus contributes to restoring the unity of his person, showing how sport, solidarity and spirituality were for Bartali the expression of a single, profound human and Christian vocation.

THE AUTHOR. Sergio Meda, from Milan, made his debut at La Gazzetta dello Sport in 1973. In 1982 he left the Rizzoli Group to found, with Beppe Viola, Magazine, a communications agency. Back at the Gazzetta in the mid-1990s, at the press office of the pink events, particularly the Giro d’Italia, until 2009. Since then he has been involved in journalism and creative writing courses, as well as publishing books on sports topics.

The volume is available on the official website www.frateindovino.eu and in bookstores.