Fiorenzo Magni 1920 - 2012

The great Fiorenzo Magni died today, October 19th 2012, at the age of 91. He was a true icon of Italian cycling. Often referred to as the “third man of the Golden Age”, he was a fierce adver­sary of Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi, win­ning the Giro d’Italia three times. He was known as “ll Leone delle Fiandre”  after his hat-trick of wins in the Tour of Flanders in ‘49, ‘50 and ‘51. He is also largely cred­ited with cre­at­ing the blue­print for pro­fes­sional cycling, for it was he who first intro­duced the idea of com­mer­cial spon­sors from out­side of the cycling industry.

Magni began his cycling career with the l’Associazione Ciclistica Montecatini Terme in 1938. Just a year later, at 18 years of age, he was selected for the Italian National Team but this early part of his career was cut short by the start of the Second World War.

He won his first of three Giro d’Italia’s in 1948, but his most famous win in the Corsa Rosa came in 1955 after a stun­ning per­for­mance along­side Fausto Coppi that saw him depose the cur­rent leader on a foul stage to San Pellegrino.

Perhaps his most endur­ing story though was born in the fol­low­ing year’s Giro. He broke his col­lar­bone in a crash but remounted, not only fin­ish­ing the stage, but also the entire race. The pain from his injury was so intense when pulling on the han­dle­bars that he attached a piece of tape to the bars so that he could bite on it and take the pres­sure off his injury. He went on to fin­ish a heroic sec­ond place.

For Ernesto Colnago, Magni occu­pies a spe­cial place in his heart. It was he who recog­nised the tal­ents of Ernesto and invited him to be a mechanic at the Nivea team, a move that intro­duced Colnago to the upper ech­e­lons of cycling and charted the course of another of cycling’s leg­endary sto­ries. The two men remained great friends.

Fiorenzo Magni will be deeply missed by all who knew him, but his leg­end will live on.