Last week should have been a triumphant one for world cycling champion Mario Cipollini. But injury was piled on top of insult as Italy’s most charismatic cyclist slid across the road at 48kph on his backside, just 160m from the finish line in the little Veneto town of San Donà di Piave. With bruising to his ribs and back, Cipollini was unable to complete the race.
Cyclists, press, officials and fans have been united in their condemnation of the organisers of the Tour de France earlier last week, who refused Cipollini a place in their race for the third year in succession.
After his exclusion last year, Cipollini had a war of words with the Tour officials, then trained like a maniac to win the world title in October on the assumption that it would guarantee him a place.
But when the final four slots for the Tour were announced there was no place for his Domina Vacanze team.
The decision of the organisers, headed by former journalist and Tour rider Jean-Marie Leblanc, looked particularly tactless as it came the day after Cipollini won his 41st stage in the Giro, and a few hours before he won his 42nd. The figures are significant: 41 stage wins put Cipollini level with the record held since 1933 by Alfredo Binda, the greatest Italian campionissimo of the pre-war years; 42 meant the record was his.
It is a colossal achievement. The two greatest Giro riders since World War II, Fausto Coppi and Eddy Merckx, are both legends of the sport, and neither got near Binda’s record. Cipollini has made hype his trademark, marketing himself as ”the fastest man in the world” but his record, a tribute to 15 seasons at the top, justifies the hyperbole.
The press had bitter words for the Tour de France. In a venomous editorial under the headline ”An offence to the world”, Angelo Zomegnan, one of La Gazzetta dello Sport’s most senior editors, described the decision as ”a blasphemy” and concluded that ”the world title has been emptied of all meaning. Cipollini has lost to some Mr Nobodies”.
”Part of cycling’s heritage has been stupidly trodden into the dirt,” he continued. ”Such an act is what we might have expected of one of Leblanc’s predecessors, hounded out of the job because they were unable to manage the Tour, or of his successor [Daniel Baal], a man who has never looked capable of taking in sport’s culture.”
Even Lance Armstrong has expressed surprise: ”There are three good reasons why this decision is absolutely wrong. First, Cipollini is the world champion and they didn’t think only of the race.
”Second, he is the best sprinter in the world, so even on a technical level it’s a mistake not to invite him. Third, he is a really big personality and he’s very popular in cycling. He knows how to take his responsibilities and the Tour should welcome him back.”
As is always the case in Italy, it is not as simple as it looks. Cipollini and the Tour have a troubled recent history. He has started the race seven times, won 12 stages, but never made it to Paris. Last time he rode the Tour, in 1999, he won four stages in a row, a feat not seen since the 1930s. The organisers, however, do not approve of the fact that he wins his stages, then goes home when the race hits the mountains, leaving his team as mere passengers.
There remains the chance of a last-minute change of heart, but Cipollini will not forget an insult.
”Now, even if they do invite me, I won’t go,” he said. ”And if I had to go because the team asked me then I’d go without enthusiasm or preparation. For me to win a stage at the Tour wearing the world champion’s jersey would be the ultimate feat in my career. It will remain an unfulfilled desire.”
The Tour organisers accepted that Cipollini probably merited a place ahead of some of the teams who achieved automatic qualification, an admission that their race will be the poorer without him.
Not even Armstrong has Cipollini’s public profile. Astute marketing by sponsors has made him far more than a sprinter and no ordinary world champion. He has constantly sported colour-coordinated outfits and bikes, usually receiving a fine for having non-standard kit. He borrowed an Inter Milan shirt from his friend Ronaldo to wear after one victory, and has moonlighted as a fashion model — dressing up as Superman alongside a body-painted nude.
In a sport that has a lengthy tradition of celibacy, he makes much of his liking for amore. ”Ejaculating costs you all of 100 calories, no more than a bar of chocolate,” he once said.
Asked whether he would like to be in movies, he replied, ”Porn, naturally”.
Victory at San Dona was 15 seconds away when it eluded him, the perfect metaphor for a week in which the fastest man in the world glimpsed a place in the Tour de France, then lost it. First out, then down and out. —