{"id":139,"date":"2009-05-19T08:00:21","date_gmt":"2009-05-19T12:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/?p=139"},"modified":"2009-05-19T08:00:21","modified_gmt":"2009-05-19T12:00:21","slug":"il-giro-d%e2%80%99italia-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/il-giro-d%e2%80%99italia-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Il Giro d\u2019Italia, part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now don\u2019t start getting the idea that I\u2019m mad about cycling. Well I have got una bici<\/strong> (a bike) in the shed with two flat tires,\u00a0and it gets an airing\u00a0once or twice a year. When we lived\u00a0in a fairly flat region in England we cycled to work, to the shops, and also for leisure. But now we are montanari<\/strong> (mountain people), we\u2019ve got strong leg muscles from all the walking we do, but we hate cycling uphill.<\/span><\/p>\n

Nevertheless, even if I\u2019m not about to cycle 1000 meters up to the pass, there is no escaping the fact that cycling is una passione<\/strong> (a passion) here in Italy, and so I\u2019d like to mention a couple of curiosita\u2019 ciclistiche<\/strong> (cycling curiosities) from the history of the Giro d\u2019Italia<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Una donna al Giro!<\/strong> (A woman in the race!)<\/span><\/p>\n

The Giro d\u2019Italia<\/strong> is a men’s race, women having been granted their own race,\u00a0Il Giro Donne<\/strong> (The Women\u2019s Tour), which has taken place every July since 1988\u00a0.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, I recently read an interesting article in an Italian magazine about a female cyclist called Alfonsina Strada<\/strong> (Strada<\/strong>, hmm what an appropriate name) from Emilia Romagna<\/strong>, who in 1924 was accepted as an entrant in the Giro d\u2019Italia<\/strong>. Alfonsina didn\u2019t manage to win any of the tappe<\/strong> (stages, see my previous blog) but did nevertheless beat a lot of the men. You have to remember that 1924 was the era of Fascism<\/strong> in Italy, and for a woman to beat men in a race was not acceptable, so a clause was found to exclude poor Alfonsina from the classification of the competition. She was not however deterred, and carried on to complete all the tappe<\/strong>. Only thirty one of the competitors managed to finish the grueling race: thirty men and one brave woman called Alfonsina Strada.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

La \u2018Maglia Nera\u2019<\/strong> (The \u2018Black Shirt’)<\/span><\/p>\n

Almost as prestigious as the \u2018Maglia Rosa\u2019<\/strong> (‘Pink Shirt’), which is given to the winner of the Giro<\/strong>, was the \u2018Maglia Nera\u2019<\/strong> which\u00a0was awarded from 1946\u00a0until 1951\u00a0to\u00a0the competitor who\u00a0arrived last!<\/span><\/p>\n

Luigi Malabrocca<\/strong> wasn\u2019t a great champion, he had won 138 cycling races, 15 of these as a professional cyclist, yet it was for his ability to loose, not to win,\u00a0for which\u00a0he became famous! In 1946 and 1947 Malabrocca managed to \u2018win\u2019 last place in the Giro d\u2019Italia<\/strong> by\u00a0using the tactics of wasting time between tappe<\/strong>, hiding behind hedges at the side of the road, spending as much time as possible in bars along the route, and even puncturing his own tires to slow himself down. In 1949 however, his tactics backfired on him when the timekeepers and judges, annoyed and fed up with waiting for him, went home before he arrived at the finishing post and\u00a0awarded\u00a0Malabrocca the same general timing as the main body of cyclists. That year the\u00a0‘notorious’ \u2018Maglia Nera\u2019<\/strong> went instead to his co-competitor Sante Carollo<\/strong>. From that time\u00a0 on Malabrocca abandoned his rather singular corsa all\u2019ultimo posto<\/strong> (race for the last place). Malabrocca died at the age of 86 in 2006: for his ultimo viaggio<\/strong> (last journey) his friends dressed him in the \u2018Maglia Rossa\u2019<\/strong> the famous \u2018Pink Shirt\u2019 which he\u2019d probably never even\u00a0dreamed of wearing.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now don\u2019t start getting the idea that I\u2019m mad about cycling. Well I have got una bici (a bike) in the shed with two flat tires,\u00a0and it gets an airing\u00a0once or twice a year. When we lived\u00a0in a fairly flat region in England we cycled to work, to the shops, and also for leisure. But…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","hentry","category-culture"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/italian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}