SHEDDING DEMONS

THIRTY YEARS AGO ONE OF WORLD CYCLING’S MOST ENIGMATIC FIGURES FINALLY WON THE MAGLIA ROSA. PROCYCLING RECALLS ROBERTO VISENTINI’S TORTURED JOURNEY TO THE PROMISED LAND

Writer: Herbie Sykes
Procycling - ISSUE 216 / MAY 2016

Born into a wealthy undertaking family in the hills above Lake Garda, Roberto Visentini was the antithesis of the cycling archetype. He wasn’t in it for the money; he raced for the same reason that he rode motocross and skied, because he was the best at it. Being the best at things was good for his fragile self-esteem.

Visentini left school aged 14 to concentrate on the motocross, but soon, he discovered that winning bike races was child’s play. For two years he and Italy’s other boy wonder, Giuseppe Saronni, divided the junior spoils. If it came together Saronni would gallop home, but if it didn’t, if there were hills, then the taciturn one would ride away.

Two weeks after his 18th birthday Visentini won the National Championship, and seven days later he won the inaugural Junior Worlds in Switzerland. He wasn’t the most communicative but he was handsome, gifted and rich. The girls came flocking, and he liked that. By the time he turned 20 he’d added a National TT Championship, a 900cc Kawasaki and a BMW.

“I didn’t think I had any rivals but then the penny dropped. I realised my biggest adversary was myself,” he said.

Visentini never was one for logic. He signed with Vibor, a low-budget team run by three-time Giro runner-up Italo Zilioli. He had no interest in demeaning himself as a gregario, and Zilioli offered him a free hand at the 1978 Giro. Moreover, he roomed with the amiable Davide Boifava. But the golden boy crashed at the Tour d’Indre et Loire 10 days before the Giro, and broke a rib. He caught bronchitis during the Giro itself but with Boifava ministering to his emotional and psychological wellbeing he still finished 15th, wearing the white jersey.

“He had incredible class,” says Remo Rocchia, one of the Vibor gregari. “But he wasn’t a natural leader. He never smiled, he was spoilt, and he was too introverted.”

Rarely diplomatic, he informed the press that he fancied he’d win the Giro “within two or three years” and that if he didn’t, he’d pack it in and go back to motocross.

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BY SPRING 1979, Francesco Moser had won the hearts of Italy’s sports fans and of Giro patron Vincenzo Torriani. He’d captured successive Paris-Roubaix, and the rainbow jersey. He was strong, likeable, and above all bankable. Folksy and unpretentious, Moser was the pink jersey that the Giro needed, and Torriani, chastened by a decade of Belgian success in his race, made a percorso to measure. In light of his idol’s climbing limitations, he placed such mountains as there were far from the stage finishes, and included no fewer than four individual TTs.

But an outbreak of conjunctivitis swept through the peloton in the weeks before the race, and both Moser and Visentini were affected. When the dust settled, 21-year-old Saronni, Visentini’s former nemesis, was the beneficiary. The Giro had an unexpected winner but a highly propitious one.

Saronni was a sensational bike rider but better still he got right under Moser’s skin. The housewives’ choice publicly labelled him a wheelsucker, a one-trick pony who sat on and pickpocketed sprints. Saronni loved the rancour, and there was nothing he enjoyed more than rubbing Moser’s nose in it. The Italians’ veneration of Moser knew no bounds, and in Saronni they found the perfect pantomime villain. Their mutual antipathy, a godsend for Torriani, would condition the race for half a decade.

Bernard Hinault presented himself at the 1980 edition but three days in advance of his 23rd birthday Visentini wore pink. However, Hinault destroyed him in the Apennines. The Italian shipped a full six minutes and capsized again on the Stelvio. He finished a miserable ninth, while Hinault won the Giro as he pleased.

The unsmiling one began the 1981 edition as a favourite, having won the Giro del Trentino. Headed into the Dolomites he was on schedule for his three-year plan, third behind the Swede Tommy Prim and the climber Silvano Contini. Then, however, he blew on the Passo Vivione, and that was that.

Same the following year, as Hinault ran away with it. Visentini was off form. Bronchitis, apparently, and tendonitis. In five years he’d taken zero top-five Giro finishes, and not so much as a mitigating stage win. There were question marks over his application and training. There were women, there was a Ferrari in the garage, and there was a well-founded reputation for truculence. By now Boifava was building a team of his own. Inoxpran was in need of a GC rider but Boifava’s budget was limited. Visentini wasn’t in it for the money, however, and he came with strings very firmly attached. He was moody, complicated, monosyllabic, clumsy with the media and unpopular. Boifava still believed in his God-given talent, however, and he was one of the few cycling people Visentini genuinely liked.

“I always got on well with Davide,” said Visentini. “He was a good man, and there weren’t many of those in cycling.”

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BY NOW THERE were two kinds of Giro; those with Hinault and those with Moser and Saronni. When the Breton rode he won but in 1983 he chose the Vuelta. Saronni had steamed to a brilliant Worlds win the previous autumn and added Lombardy six weeks later. The following spring he romped

to Sanremo, and Italy finally acclaimed his genius. Nobody had ever completed the Worlds-Sanremo-Lombardy-Giro clean sweep before, and Torriani was acutely aware of the prevailing winds. He produced the “Giro of the Tunnels”, eliminating the Alps altogether and virtually flattening the Dolomites. Mountain stages would conclude in the foothills, or with long descents. There would be copious time bonuses for Saronni.

Predictably, the 1983 Giro was the fastest in history. Visentini dropped Saronni in the hills, and his aggregate time was lowest. Over the piece he put 53 seconds into Saronni, and yet somehow he still lost. Torriani’s time bonuses did the trick, as Italy’s new poster boy triumphed by 1:07.

On the eve of the final stage there was a bizarre attempt by Visentini’s wheelbuilder to sabotage Saronni. He allegedly tried to bribe a hotel waiter to lace his minestrone with laxative but the waiter called the police instead. Visentini wasn’t implicated but once more he was the odd man out in the Saronni/Moser/Torriani love-in. He railed against Torriani for the percorso and the time bonuses, against Italian cycling: “People think that I’m a playboy. I’m a serious cyclist but if Torriani doesn’t do something about these damned time bonuses I’ll ride the Tour instead.”

Visentini was a lousy diplomat, and he had few friends in the peloton. However, he did have a point this time.

While his great rival Saronni had been making hay, Francesco Moser suffered a wretched 1983. He’d failed at the Classics and abandoned the Giro. But in January 1984, he travelled to Mexico with a team of sports scientists, a revolutionary bike featuring a lenticular wheel, and, it would transpire, some blood bags. He smashed Eddy Merckx’s Hour Record, and on his return added Milan-Sanremo, which had eluded him for a decade. Headed into another soft Giro the pundits added the reinvented Moser to a list of favourites including Saronni, reigning Tour champ Laurent Fignon and of course Visentini, the born outsider.

Boifava had a new sponsor, the Carrera jeans company, and on 31 May Visentini rewarded them. Under a deluge on the Ligurian Coast, he deployed his outstanding bike-handling skills to descend away from the GC group. It was his maiden Giro stage win and it left him just 10 seconds down on pink jersey Moser. Visentini was in form and well placed to upset Torriani’s applecart. He even gave the distinct impression that he was enjoying being a racing cyclist.

Two days later he turned 27 but here was a flat, 38km time trial made to measure for Moser. Moser punctured but still put 53 seconds into Visentini. It was a reasonable performance by Boifava’s charge.

Stage 18, the first of a Dolomite trio, was to feature the Stelvio, which Torriani had positioned 75km from the finish. The hope was that the descent to Merano would enable Moser to get back on but for Visentini and Fignon it was a chance to hurt the maglia rosa. They’d land a blow there and then, on the final Friday, bludgeon him out of the race on the Sella Ring. But news broke that the Stelvio was impassable. Worse still, Torriani substituted it with two easy climbs, Tonale and Palade. Aprica, steeper and more percussive than either, was practicable, and Boifava lobbied for it. Torriani gave him short shrift, and Visentini rolled out of Lecco with a face like a slapped backside.

On the Tonale he, Fignon and the Swiss Beat Breu dropped Moser. But they looked on in horror as the pink jersey was drafted back up to them by a motorbike. Interviewed by RAI at the finish, Visentini launched a tirade against Torriani, Moser and the Giro in general. Writing in La Stampa, journalist Gianpaolo Ormezzano described the whole thing as “Kafkaesque”.

Visentini was coming apart again, and the press put the boot in the following morning. They evoked the old “spoiled rich boy” mantra. They were baiting him because they knew he was sensitive. Of course he fell for it. By the time he got to the start he was on the verge of another emotional capitulation.

The stage would be run off in Trento – Moser country. On the road the ultras insulted and allegedly spat at Visentini, and 12km out his nerves betrayed him. He’d begun the day with a shot at victory but he climbed off. Boifava eventually persuaded him to remount but 13 minutes had passed. Somehow he finished the Giro. It had been an utter catastrophe for him and Carrera. Boifava was a phlegmatic man but even he was at his wit’s end.

“He was extremely difficult but I cared about him and resolved not to give up. He was a potential Tour winner, so I persuaded him to prove everyone wrong by riding it,” said Boifava, adding: “If only I’d known.”

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VISENTINI GOT THE ball rolling at the Tour by losing six minutes at Guzet Neige. Three days later he was brought off by a spectator, and abandoned. Boifava couldn’t do right for doing wrong but Visentini wasn’t done yet. That autumn he put his bike into a vice and took a saw to it. Then he stuffed the lot into a bin bag and sent it to Boifava.

This was apparently cathartic, because Boifava got Visentini to the start of the 1985 Giro. By now he was telling everybody that he was riding it as preparation for the Tour but he still led the race for eight days. Then, just as he looked like he might pull it off, he crashed on the eve of the TT. He shipped 1:42 to Hinault but still lay second after 16 stages. Then he caught bronchitis for the umpteenth time and lost six minutes on the Abetone. He fought bravely but it was futile.

Visentini still made ready for the Tour. Moser claimed he had no chance, and Visentini, as always, bit.

“He doesn’t ride the Tour because it’s a serious race. A single Tour is worth three of his Giri,” said Visentini. He added that he felt capable of the top five but Boifava wanted more. He secretly believed that, if he could finally keep it together emotionally, Visentini had a genuine chance of winning. Hinault was past his best, Fignon was out with tendonitis and the new breed (LeMond, Delgado and Roche) were comparatively unproven. The route featured long TTs and real mountains and so a strong-looking Carrera team crossed the Alps in good spirits. It didn’t take long to go wrong.

Visentini came in with the specialists on the stage to Roubaix. Then it started again. He lost ground in the Strasbourg time trial, shambling in 15th, 4:17 behind winner Hinault. “Indigestion,” he whined, before shipping another 30 seconds on a nothing stage to Epinal. Jørgen Pedersen won a stage for Carrera but Visentini was intent on spoiling the fun. He lost 12 minutes due to “gastritis”, and Boifava finally snapped.

“He has gastritis but only in his head,” said Boifava. “From tomorrow he’s on his own. Nobody will wait for him any more because they’ve had enough. So have I.”

Prodigiously talented or not, Visentini had only one Grand Tour podium to his name. For his troubles Boifava had a shambolic Tour, an unhappy team and a hacked-off sponsor.

On the eve of the rest day he sat down with the Tacchella brothers, Carrera’s owners. They gave him carte blanche to look elsewhere, and he set about trying to persuade Stephen Roche, Phil Anderson and Sean Kelly to enlist. According to Hinault, Italian cycling had become a bit of a joke: “Visentini’s character is problematic but the real issue is that for three quarters of the race it’s not actually a race, just a stroll.

The Italians lose the ability to suffer. Then when they go abroad, where there’s always a battle, they’re not competitive.”

Hinault, who knew a thing or two about suffering, won his fifth Tour de France. Roberto Visentini finished 49th.

Boifava persuaded Roche to sign but this seemed to galvanize Visentini. His early season form was promising but the inevitable mishap came pre-Giro, with a fractured wrist at the GP Prato. Now Boifava tried some reverse psychology. He made a point of awarding Roche – not Visentini – nominal leadership in May. The Irishman had a knee injury and couldn’t win but he got dossard 21 to Visentini’s 22.

Boifava was effectively telling the latter that he didn’t think him capable of winning the Giro. The hope was that he’d thrive in the absence of responsibility or be so affronted that he’d find the resolve to put

three weeks together. It was worth a try.

The opening stage took place in Sicily, at Sciacca. There was a pile-up and later that evening Emilio Ravasio, a kid from Monza, fell into a coma. Two weeks later, Visentini, LeMond and Pedro Muñoz attacked on the Passo San Marco. At that moment, unknown to them, Ravasio’s life ebbed away.

With Moser and Saronni definitively dropped, the three fugitives began the long haul up the Passo Foppolo. 800m from the line Visentini shipped his chain but importantly there were no histrionics. The undertaker’s son pulled on the maglia rosa, and paid his respects to his fallen comrade by conducting himself with great dignity post-stage. Then he rode a solid TT and a consummate final stage in the Dolomites.

On 2 June 1986 the Giro’s most tortured soul finally reached the promised land. Roberto Visentini, the great enigma of 1980s cycling, had somehow contrived not to lose the Giro d’Italia.

VISENTINI’S GIRO D’ITALIA RECORD

Year Position

1978 15th

1979 10th

1980 9th

1981 6th

1982 DNF

1983 2nd

1984 18th

1985 DNF

1986 1st

1987 DNF

1988 13th

1989 DNS

1990 26th