Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation

Road to Valor: A True Story of WWII Italy, the Nazis, and the Cyclist Who Inspired a Nation

Aili McConnon

Language: English

Pages: 336

ISBN: 0307590658

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


The inspiring, against-the-odds story of Gino Bartali, the cyclist who made the greatest comeback in Tour de France history and secretly aided the Italian resistance during World War II

    Gino Bartali is best known as an Italian cycling legend who not only won the Tour de France twice but also holds the record for the longest time span between victories. In Road to Valor, Aili and Andres McConnon chronicle Bartali’s journey, from an impoverished childhood in rural Tuscany to his first triumph at the 1938 Tour de France. As World War II ravaged Europe, Bartali undertook dangerous activities to help those being targeted in Italy, including sheltering a family of Jews and smuggling counterfeit identity documents in the frame of his bicycle. After the grueling wartime years, the chain-smoking, Chianti-loving, 34-year-old underdog came back to win the 1948 Tour de France, an exhilarating performance that helped unite his fractured homeland.
    Based on nearly ten years of research, Road to Valor is the first book ever written about Bartali in English and the only book written in any language to explore the full scope of Bartali’s wartime work.  An epic tale of courage, resilience, and redemption, it is the untold story of one of the greatest athletes of the twentieth century.

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launch a small business that would support them for the rest of their lives. Gino, however, was interested in more than mere treasure; the scope of his ambition was decidedly larger. Achieving something that another Italian had already accomplished wasn’t enough. He wanted to set a record that had never been attained by any man from any country: Gino wanted to win both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France—in the same year. The idea had been raised before by other cyclists, but most experts

Across Italy, many (though not all) prisoners in internment camps were freed. At the camp where Giacomo Goldenberg was being held, the commandant called all the prisoners together and instructed them to leave. Goldenberg returned to Fiesole immediately to find his family. Gino had his own reason to celebrate. Thinking that Italy’s involvement in the war was over, he joined thousands of young men across the country who submitted the paperwork to be discharged from the army. Thousands of others

the town’s main piazza. In the fall of 1943, a single conversation would transform their relationship. It happened after Bishop Nicolini charged Niccacci with helping a group of newly arrived Jewish refugees. Each of these individuals needed counterfeit identity documents. One day, after their weekly checkers game, Niccacci reached out to Brizi to help him. As they walked through the narrow, cobblestoned streets of Assisi, the late-afternoon bells began tolling for evening vespers. Niccacci

course, but, without any bags or weapons on his person, he appeared fairly harmless. Once their suspicions had been allayed, the members of the patrol were freed for a moment from the anxieties of the war to delight in the novelty of meeting one of their nation’s most famous sports celebrities. Gino recognized this interest and coyly played to it. Low-ranking privates were delighted with autographs or a well-delivered joke in toscano, the distinct local dialect proudly paraded as the badge of

while scantily clad showgirls danced provocatively in the background. It was a controversial decision and, in the eyes of many, a hypocritical and tawdry lapse for a man who had been one of Catholic Action’s most prominent members. Although financial considerations were probably one of his primary motivations for doing the show, Gino defended his decision in the name of his fierce sense of independence. “At my age,” he said, “I think I know what’s good for me.” In the recordings of the show,

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