Time is a tyrant, but so is space. In fact, the two are accomplices: time saturates space. And with Covid or summer, comes the moment of cleanup. You start by aiming to clear the attic, you settle for liquidating a box. And among bags, folders and files, irresistible clippings emerge. Like this article of mine on Vanni Pettenella: "La Gazzetta dello Sport", February 8, 1999.

He tried them all, Vanni, Giovanni Pettenella called Vanni, who "started with football, youth player at Milan, but my father had been a cyclist, amateur, and certain things remain in the blood. 'Do three races, if you win one...' he told me, without finishing the sentence, so I could put anything into it, even a second-hand bike, but a racing one. I won the third race at Ronago, between Como and Chiasso, uphill finish. Unbelievable, but I was good going uphill".

He tried them all, Vanni, and if someone calls him Giovanni, he doesn't even turn his head. "Since I was good not only uphill, but also in the sprint, I enrolled at the Fausto Coppi school at the Vigorelli. It was 1959. In the morning I was a poultry seller, by bike or motorcycle, I tied a small cage with chicks, ducks and geese, I went to the market, I kept them in a small pen with salad and polenta, I went home when I sold them. In the afternoon on the track: I rode, studied, copied, sprinted, slowed down, tried the surplace, fell, clung to the net, feet in the toe clips, me and the bike lying down, hanging, balanced, like on a wall. All I had left was to call Renzo, the custodian, to have us pulled down".

He tried them all, Vanni, in terms of sprints. "I could change tactics ten times in a single sprint. I looked at all of them, my opponents, and it seemed to me there wasn't one weaker than me. So I had to be clever. If my opponent preferred to attack early, I made him attack as late as possible. If he preferred to sprint at the front, I stayed ahead of him. If he preferred to launch himself, I made him start from a standstill. If he preferred to attack from behind, I did the surplace. I hold the world record for surplace: one hour, five minutes and five seconds, Varese, Italian championships 1968, semifinal against Bianchetto. Then he fainted. Him. In the final against Beghetto. Lost. Me".

He tried them all, Vanni, "because on the track you don't spare anyone. The up and down game. The game where at 70 kilometers per hour you let him pass and then send him onto the grass or crash him into the net. The game where in certain parts of the track you're alone".

He tried them all, Vanni, Italian champion among juniors, youth riders and amateurs, Olympic champion in Tokyo, "and the Six-Day races. In Montreal they raced in the hockey stadium, two straights and two curves like commas, there you learned quickly, and whoever didn't learn, flew away. The first evening I can still see it, De Lillo, flying over the tables. I did about ten Six-Day races and, in Melbourne, Australia, I even won. A beautiful world of bandits, on the track, and off it. Once Faggin had the prizes withdrawn from a certain Campana, Italian, who lived there, Adelaide, Australia. Campana withdrew the prizes willingly, went to gamble them on horses and was never seen again".