Felice Gimondi obituary

21 August 2019 03:48
One of the greats of Italian cycling who won the 1965 Tour de France when he was only 22Felice Gimondi, who has died of a heart attack aged 76, was one of Italy’s greatest cycling champions of the postwar era, a precociously young winner of the Tour de France who was widely viewed as the successor to the legendary “Campionissimo” Fausto Coppi. However, along with every professional cyclist racing between 1966 and 1976, Gimondi was unfortunate to be competing when Eddy Merckx was in his prime; in spite of that he built a palmarès (prize list) that places him in the top 10 cyclists of all time.In 1964 Gimondi rode the Tokyo Olympic Games – as did Merckx – and went on to win that year’s Tour de l’Avenir, a mini version of the Tour de France for riders under 25 – currently it is for people under 23. The following year he became the only rider to win the Avenir and the Tour itself in successive seasons, when he took the Tour at the age of 22; until Egan Bernal’s victory this year, Gimondi remained the youngest Tour winner in the postwar era. Continue readingread full article

Source: TheGuardian