Alberto Minetti: YOUNG, GIFTED… & BROKEN

Thirty-four years ago a horrific accident extinguished a luminous talent. Procycling recalls Alberto Minetti, the champion who never was…

Writer: Herbie Sykes
Procycling #204, June 2015

On the morning of Monday 10 August 1981, a first-year professional cyclist named Alberto Minetti took a call from his sports director. Minetti was due to ride the Giro del Friuli on the Thursday, for his Famcucine team. However, venerable old Luciano Pezzi now informed him that, all things considered, he’d be as well to give it a miss. Two days earlier he’d climbed off at the Coppa Placci in Imola, just as he’d climbed off at his two previous races. It had been a long, hard season, Pezzi informed him, and the workload was clearly catching up with him. Hugely gifted or otherwise, Minetti was running on empty. There was no value in him driving 500 kilometres to Pordenone for another pasting.

Best, therefore, that he turn his legs over at home for 10 days. That way he’d be fresh at Tre Valli Varesine, the first of the three back-to-back Classics which comprised the Trittico Lombardo. More importantly still, the break would stand him in good stead for Milano-Torino and the Giro del Piemonte, two of the major objectives of his debut season.

Alberto Minetti had grown up in Cuneo, the Piedmontese market town made famous by Fausto Coppi’s exploit at the 1949 Giro. As a boy he’d been a fan of one Italo Zilioli, the brilliant, mercurial stage racer from nearby Turin. Once considered the new Coppi, Zilioli had somehow contrived to finish runner-up at three mid-60s Giri in succession. Though he failed to wear pink even for a single day, Zilioli’s grace and human fragility made him an iconic figure, particularly in Piedmont. Therefore, when 13-year-old Alberto had passed his exams, he’d informed his father Remo that what he most wanted was a bike of his own. Pretty soon he’d signed up with the Gruppo Sportivo Primavera and then, given that he’d an aptitude for each and every sport he tried, started winning bike races.

By 1975 he was representing his country at the Junior World Championships in Switzerland. Roberto Visentini, the best of the class of ’57, simply rode away that day, just as he’d ride away at the Giro d’Italia some 11 years later. Minetti finished ninth in the sprint. No Visentini, perhaps, but his talent was lost on no one… The late 60s had seen two Cunese professionals, Matteo Cravero and Gianpaolo Cucchietti, animate the Giro d’Italia. Their exploits, allied to global issues such as the energy crisis and the nascent environmentalist movement, saw cycling enjoy unprecedented growth in a small corner of Piedmont. Somehow Cuneo, a town of just 55,000 inhabitants, was becoming a veritable production line of racing cyclists. So popular did it become that the city fathers even sponsored a professional team for 1976. Thus more local riders made the great leap forward and that summer a local teenager named Corrado Donadio delivered silver in the Junior Worlds Road Race. He won gold in the Team Time Trial as well, and thus acquired local celebrity status. Better still for the natives, he and Minetti soon developed a tasty local rivalry. They came from the same small town and rode for the same club but there the similarities ended. The aspirant Minetti was expansive and communicative, the champion Donadio the taciturn cycling archetype.

WHEN THE TWO of them were conscripted to a year’s national service in 1977, they shared both a training programme and a bunk at the barracks. Though six months Alberto’s junior, Donadio was more mature physically, much stronger. However, he knew that Minetti, his polar opposite as regards temperament and personality, was catching up fast both on and off the bike. Their relationship began to fray, before an incident at the Italian Military Championships saw it descend into unbridled hostility. Minetti was adamant he’d outsprinted Donadio for second place but the jury saw it otherwise. Minetti appealed to Donadio’s better nature but the golden boy was having none of it. The idea that Minetti might finally usurp him was beyond countenance and still more so in such a high-profile race. He pleaded ignorance and the result stood. As such, his crown – if not perhaps his honour – remained intact as he headed off to sign his first professional contract aged just 20. Donadio’s accession to the pros was premature but necessity always was the mother of invention. CONI, the Italian Olympic Committee, routinely placed a two-year block on new pros prior to the Olympics. Thus, with the Moscow Games on the horizon, the best of Italy’s amateur riders were compelled to choose. Either they risked everything by making the switch early or they retained their amateur status until after Games, in this instance the 1981 season. CONI’s reasoning was simple: in keeping the best amateurs in the system they gave their country the best chance of competing on more level terms with the full-time, state sponsored powerhouses of Eastern Europe. Minetti, his morale on the floor following the treachery, contemplated packing the whole thing in. He hummed and hawed but ultimately his love of the bike was just too strong. His heart set on earning selection for Moscow, he accepted a job offer at Fiat Tractors in Turin. He would live at the company sports headquarters, work a four-hour shift, and train in the afternoons. The overtime and travel expenses he accrued through racing augmented his salary, and pretty soon he was earning more than a low-level professional domestique. He and Piero Ghibaudo, a latecomer to cycling from along the way in Almese, became as thick as thieves. Therefore, while Donadio was acquainted with the glass ceiling which was the life of a professional gregario, Minetti spread his wings on the burgeoning amateur circuit. At the Vuelta de Chile, his first race outside of Europe, he won two of the 12 stages and Fiat the team time trial. He lost the race lead on a 35-kilometre climb but it was becoming clear that he was a stage racing thoroughbred. By the conclusion of the 1979 season he’d won gold in the team time trial at the Mediterranean Games and beaten the best amateurs in the world to claim the Settimana Bergamasca. Little wonder they voted him Italy’s best amateur rider and little wonder they were predicting great things if and when he turned pro. 1979 had seen Vibor, the pro team managed by Zilioli, shut up shop. Sagacious, urbane and a good deal smarter than the average DS, Zilioli agreed to join FIAT. Inspired by his great idol’s tutelage, Minetti beat a path to Rieti, starting point of the week-long Giro delle Regioni.

Now, amateur cycling is essentially a breeding ground but it wasn’t ever thus. Back then it existed in parallel with (and on something approaching an equal footing to) the professional version. Events such as the Giro delle Regioni were televised live by RAI, the state broadcaster, and with perfectly good reason. Not only did they represent the opening skirmishes in the battle for World and Olympic gold but also a chance for western audiences to see the best riders from the Eastern Bloc. Professional cycling didn’t exist there but this was a race sponsored by l’Unità, Italy’s powerful communist daily. The Italian communist party was the biggest in Western Europe and as a public service broadcaster RAI was mandated to represent both sides of the political spectrum. Sport and politics always were indivisible, and so the great champions from the Soviet Union, Poland and East Germany were shipped across the Berlin Wall. Their remit was to demonstrate communism’s sporting primacy and invariably they did precisely that. Soviet riders had won the previous two editions but here Minetti was simply too good. He dominated the time trial at Bertinoro and rode within himself to clinch the GC. A brilliant passista-scalatore, he was a shoo-in for Moscow, both for the Road Race and the 100-kilometre team time trial. Meanwhile Ghibaudo, Minetti’s room-mate, friend and confidant, crossed his fingers.

In the event both made the trip, though Ghibaudo did so only as a reserve. On a broiling hot day the Russians dominated the TTT, as the specialists of the Soviet Bloc occupied the top four places. Much the strongest of the Italians, Minetti piloted his team to fifth place but would pay a heavy price come the Road Race. There, Sergei Sukhoruchenkov, a sort of amateur Eddy Merckx, simply rode away. The Russians, the rumour-mongers informed us, were “fuel-injected”, while Minetti was strictly pane e salame. For now at least... The Olympic dream had been and gone but Minetti’s stock was higher than ever. Italy’s professional outfits, starved for three years of new blood, formed a disorderly queue for his signature. At its head were Gis and Famcucine, the teams of the great champions Beppe Saronni and Francesco Moser. Counselled by Zilioli, Minetti chose the latter. Moser was six years Saronni’s senior and wasn’t winning anything like as often. Logic suggested he’d be abdicating in the none-too-distant future, and even he admitted he’d not a hope in Hades of winning the maglia rosa. Sooner or later Minetti just might, so the managers assured him that he’d be given carte blanche to ride as he saw fit. All he need do, they said, was avoid treading on Moser’s toes during the Classics, and lend a hand if the need arose. No gregario he…

ON 13 SEPTEMBER 1980, Alberto Minetti and Piero Ghibaudo concluded arrangements with the Famcucine professional cycling team. The substance of the deal was that Ghibaudo would do as he was bid, Minetti pretty much as he saw fit. That winter the Italian media was unequivocal; of the 30 neo-pros, Minetti, Moreno Argentin and former world champion Gianni Giacomini were the men most likely.

They started out at the Trofeo Laigueglia. Saronni galloped home out of an élite group of 20, with Minetti a creditable 12th. At Milano-Sanremo 270 rolled out but by the time they hit the Poggio only 60 remained. Minetti attacked and, with no Gis gregario capable of reeling him in, Saronni himself was forced to bridge across. Minetti went again on the descent, before Fons De Wolf soloed down the Via Roma. Moser had failed once more to win Sanremo but Minetti’s excellence had been instrumental in making Saronni lose. Not a great day for Famcucine, therefore, but by no means the worst…

He rode well in the Northern Classics and even led briefly on the Koppenberg. The Giro, though, proved a bridge too far. He rode solidly at first but ran out of steam in the final week. He cracked horribly on Tre Cime di Lavaredo, capsizing to 23rd. The pane e salame policy, laudable or otherwise, was starting to look just a bit too quixotic even for one as talented as he. He finished eighth in the Italian National Championships, fifth at the GP Prato as Argentin won his first pro race. By the Giro dell’Appennino, however, he was pretty much spent. He climbed off on the Bocchetta, and again the following week at the Giro di Toscana. The Coppa Placci abandon, the one which provoked Pezzi’s phone call, simply confirmed that he was in need of a rest…

Piero Ghibaudo, too, had abandoned at Imola and the two of them had driven home together in one of the Famcucine team cars. Minetti had dropped him off at home in Almese, just west of Turin, and proceeded south to Cuneo. Minetti therefore agreed with Pezzi that he’d return the car to Ghibaudo’s house, and that one of the soigneurs would be despatched to pick it up from there before the trip to Friuli. No problem; Minetti called Ghibaudo and told him he’d be bringing the car over mid-afternoon and that he’d ride home having dropped it off. Ghibaudo said he’d ride out to Pinerolo, mid-distance, and meet him there instead. That way each of them would get a couple of hours in and get Saturday’s racing well and truly out of their legs.

Minetti next spoke to his girlfriend, Tiziana, and told her what was happening. She agreed to ride out towards Pinerolo on his Vespa. She’d meet him on the road somewhere near Saluzzo, then motor-pace him back the final 30 kilometres or so as she often did in fine weather. She set out at 3.45, just as Minetti climbed onto his bike at Pinerolo. He headed south, she north. They expected to meet near Saluzzo at around 4.30.

At 3.50, Minetti rolled into Osasco, the first village on the road south out of Pinerolo. He swung out slightly to avoid the cars parked along the carriageway, and approached a long, sweeping right-hand bend. As he did so, the driver of a Fiat 124, a pensioner apparently running late for a Juventus pre-season friendly, approached the bend from the opposite direction. Ignoring the 50kph speed limit and the ‘No overtaking’ signs, he lost patience with the car in front and straddled the double white lines...

Tiziana carried on through Saluzzo and, strangely, on through Cavour. By the time she crossed the river at Garzigliana she was convinced they must have passed one another, or that he’d called into a bar for water. By the time she reached the outskirts of Osasco she was contemplating turning back… The impact had carried Alberto Minetti through the windscreen and out the other side. Miraculously they found a pulse, although he was already comatose. They transferred his broken, hopeless body first to Pinerolo and then to the trauma unit at Turin’s Molinette hospital. There they remove his spleen, stabilised his chest and head injuries as best they could and then, as per the best medical protocol, hoped for the best.

Two days in a coma, four weeks in intensive care, no brain damage. Three CT scans, zero feeling in his left arm, and zero movement. Two months passed, then one thousand kilometres in a car with Zilioli for the first operation in Vienna. Twelve hours attempting to reconnect the severed nerves, no discernible success. Four-and-a-half kilograms of what formerly constituted a limb, had now become three-and-a-half, dead, inorganic. Alberto Minetti, the man most likely, had become nought but a statistic. Nought but one more invalid former racing cyclist…

Herbie Sykes

FROM THE GROUND UP
Positive by nature and by inclination, Minetti set to rebuilding his life. His father had survived a Nazi Austrian concentration camp and Alberto resolved not to be beaten by mere physical handicap. As the only Cunese to compete at the Olympics, he’d assumed there might be something he could contribute at the council. He asked the question but with his case mired in Italian bureaucracy it came to nothing.

Following a year of unemployment and desolation, he went back to work at Fiat Tractors. There were further attempts to reconnect his arm but it remained (and remains) devoid of both feeling and movement. In 1987 he began work in a local bank and 28 years on he’s still there. His glass typically half-full, he maintains that the accident saved him from the occupational hazard which was doping. It was increasingly apparent, he says, that he wasn’t going to be winning any big races on bread and salami…

Alberto Minetti went back to cycling as well, and has twice ridden the Gran Fondo Fausto Coppi. The event rolls out of Cuneo and scales the 2,480-metre Colle della Fauniera. When we called him, he told us that he and his mentor Zilioli, still firm friends 35 years on, had just returned from a skiing trip together. Alberto and Tiziana have been happily married for 31 years.