She started with athletics, and excelled at it; from triathlon she moved to cycling, and won two Olympic golds; finally she was tempted by bobsleigh, and in a two-person team with Gerda Weissensteiner (two Olympic champions, Gerda had been one in luge), she finished seventh in the world. Twenty-five years of sport as a competitive protagonist: "Talent is not a cage – she maintains – but a source". Antonella Bellutti, from Bolzano, still active in sport as a teacher, trainer, manager, journalist and writer.

He traveled with constitutional law and private law textbooks in his suitcase, studied on planes and in hotels, took his exams between November and January when the road cycling calendar had no scheduled events. And he graduated. Not only a Doctor of Law, but also a one-time Italian individual time trial champion and two-time world champion in team time trial. Manuel Quinziato, from Bolzano, 16 years as a professional, still in cycling as an agent.

He raced on roads and trails, asphalt and mud, snow and ice, collecting Italian titles (31 across various disciplines and categories) and international medals, participated in four Olympics. Twenty-five years of career concluded in the Italian national jersey. And in his (little) free time, he continued to ride: not bikes, but horses. Eva Lechner, from Appiano, guided by family and faith. And only when she stopped racing did she understand how much effort she had put in. And she remained in cycling, as a team manager.

Bellutti, Quinziato and Lechner are just three of that group of South Tyrolean champions who have graced Italian sport. Not only cycling, of course, but especially winter disciplines, from Gustavo Thoeni to Armin Zoeggeler, from Isolde Kostner to Carolina Kostner, then the diving school, from Klaus Dibiasi to Giorgio and Tania Cagnotto, up to Alex Schwazer, race walker who has known glory but also persecution, Simone Giannelli, playmaker and captain of the national volleyball team, and Jannik Sinner, number 1 in the world in tennis. Generations endowed with talent, but also with a generous nature.

"Only for Sport" is a hefty book of over 400 pages, which the Autonomous Province of Bolzano wanted to tell the story of South Tyrolean sport over the last 25 years, a project curated by the Action cooperative of Bolzano and published in January 2026. Protagonists and personalities, teams and schools, places and enterprises, including family ones, because sport is a passion that is often passed down like an inheritance, and many stories, more or less well-known.

Cycling is not only that of Bellutti, Quinziato and Lechner, but also lives in the work of Nino Lazzarotto, in the traces of Maria Canins and in those of Huber Pallhuber, today in the track successes of Matteo Bianchi and Mattia Predomo... "The cycling movement furthest north in the country, among the smallest in absolute terms in terms of registered members – explains Lazzarotto – has found itself at the top of the national rankings precisely in the ratio between practitioners and results", "in all disciplines: from mountain biking in its various specialties, to cyclocross, from BMX to road and track, despite not having a velodrome nearby". It seemed that the velodrome was only a dream. But the dream has not faded.