58 Facts About Fausto Coppi

1.

Angelo Fausto Coppi was an Italian cyclist, the dominant international cyclist of the years after the Second World War.

2.

Fausto Coppi's successes earned him the title Il Campionissimo.

3.

Fausto Coppi was an all-round racing cyclist: he excelled in both climbing and time trialing, and was a good sprinter.

4.

Fausto Coppi won the Giro d'Italia five times, the Tour de France twice, and the World Championship in 1953.

5.

Fausto Coppi was the fourth child, born at 5:00 pm on 15 September 1919.

6.

Fausto Coppi's mother wanted to call him Angelo, but his father preferred Fausto.

7.

Fausto Coppi was named Angelo Fausto but was known most of his life as Fausto.

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8.

Fausto Coppi had poor health as a child and showed little interest in school.

9.

Fausto Coppi left school at age 13 to work for Domenico Merlani, a butcher in Novi Ligure more widely known as Signor Ettore.

10.

Fausto Coppi was touched when he heard of my passion for the bike and decided that I deserved a real tool for the job on which I had set my heart, instead of the rusty old crock I was pushing around.

11.

Fausto Coppi rode his first race at age 15, among other boys not attached to cycling clubs, and won first prize: 20 lire and a salami sandwich.

12.

Fausto Coppi took a racing licence at the start of 1938 and won his first race, at Castelleto d'Orba, near the butcher's shop.

13.

Fausto Coppi met him that year, recommended by another of Cavanna's riders.

14.

Cavanna suggested in 1939 that Fausto Coppi should become an independent, a class of semi-professionals who could ride against both amateurs and professionals.

15.

Fausto Coppi finished seven minutes clear of the field and won his next race by six minutes.

16.

Fausto Coppi's career was then interrupted by active service in the Second World War.

17.

The veteran writer Pierre Chany said that from 1946 to 1954 Fausto Coppi was never once recaught once he had broken away from the rest.

18.

Twice, 1949 and 1952, Fausto Coppi won the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in the same year, the first to do so.

19.

Fausto Coppi won the Giro five times, a record shared with Alfredo Binda and Eddy Merckx.

20.

Fausto Coppi won the 1949 Tour de France by almost half an hour over everyone except Bartali.

21.

Fausto Coppi won the Giro di Lombardia a record five times.

22.

Fausto Coppi dropped the rest on the Turchino climb and won by 14 minutes.

23.

In 1948, Italians were welcome, but Fausto Coppi was suspended by the Italian cycling union because he had abandoned the 1948 Giro d'Italia in protest against the small penalty given to Fiorenzo Magni.

24.

In 1950, Fausto Coppi did not defend his Tour title, because he refused to ride together with Bartali.

25.

In 1951, he joined, but was still affected by the death of his brother Serse Fausto Coppi, and did not excel.

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26.

Fausto Coppi won on the Alpe d'Huez, which had been included for the first time that year.

27.

Fausto Coppi attacked six kilometres from the summit to rid himself of the French rider, Jean Robic.

28.

Fausto Coppi said: "I knew he was no longer there when I couldn't hear his breathing any more or the sound of his tyres on the road behind me".

29.

Fausto Coppi rode like "a Martian on a bicycle", said Raphael Geminiani.

30.

Fausto Coppi won the Tour by 28m 27s and the organiser, Jacques Goddet, had to double the prizes for lower placings to keep other riders interested.

31.

Fausto Coppi won it all: the world hour record, the world championships, the grands tours, classics as well as time trials.

32.

The great French cycling journalist, Pierre Chany says that between 1946 and 1954, once Fausto Coppi had broken away from the peloton, the peloton never saw him again.

33.

Fausto Coppi had already been hit in 1951 by the death of his younger brother, Serse Coppi, who crashed in a sprint in the Giro del Piemonte and died of a cerebral haemorrhage.

34.

Fausto Coppi was just clinging on [il tentait de sauver les meubles].

35.

When Fausto Coppi won and you wanted to check the time gap to the man in second place, you didn't need a Swiss stopwatch.

36.

Fausto Coppi's racing days are generally referred to as the beginning of the golden years of cycle racing.

37.

Fausto Coppi joined the Italian Army when Italy entered World War II: the declaration of war on the Allied Powers was made on the day after the finish of the 1940 Giro d'Italia.

38.

Fausto Coppi struggled at the beginning of the following year following the death of his father, but became national road champion after suffering a puncture and losing one and a half minutes to the bunch, forcing him into a solo chase to rejoin the peloton.

39.

However, in March 1943 Fausto Coppi was sent to North Africa to participate in the Tunisian campaign, fighting against British forces.

40.

Fausto Coppi was kept in the nearby prisoner of war camp at Ksar Said.

41.

Fausto Coppi shared plates with the father of Claudio Chiappucci, who rode the Tour in the 1990s.

42.

The British cyclist Len Levesley said he was astonished to find Fausto Coppi giving him a haircut.

43.

Fausto Coppi looked fine, he looked slim, and having been in the desert, he looked tanned.

44.

Napoli footballer Umberto Busani, to help Fausto Coppi make contact with local sports journalist Gino Palumbo, who would later become editor of La Gazzetta dello Sport.

45.

Fausto Coppi wrote to Palumbo asking if he could assist with obtaining a racing bicycle for him as he only had an army bicycle with heavy tyres which was causing him pain.

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46.

Palumbo wrote a newspaper article appealing for help: Fausto Coppi then received a Legnano racing bike from a Somma Vesuviana carpenter.

47.

The war being as good as over, Fausto Coppi was released in 1945.

48.

Fausto Coppi's beloved, "The Woman in White" was Giulia Occhini, described by the French broadcaster Jean-Paul Ollivier as "strikingly beautiful with thick chestnut hair divided into enormous plaits".

49.

Fausto Coppi was married to an army captain, Enrico Locatelli.

50.

Fausto Coppi refused to bless the Giro d'Italia when Coppi rode it.

51.

Geminiani recovered but Fausto Coppi died, his doctors convinced he had a bronchial complaint.

52.

In January 2002 a man identified only as Giovanni, who lived in Burkina Faso until 1964, said Fausto Coppi died not of malaria but of an overdose of cocaine.

53.

In 1999, Fausto Coppi placed second in balloting for greatest Italian athlete of the 20th century.

54.

Fausto Coppi was played by Sergio Castellitto and Giulia la 'Dama Bianca' was played by Ornella Muti.

55.

Fausto Coppi was often said to have introduced "modern" methods to cycling, particularly his diet.

56.

Bartali and Fausto Coppi appeared on television revues and sang together, Bartali singing about "The drugs you used to take" as he looked at Fausto Coppi.

57.

Fausto Coppi "set the pace" in drug-taking, said his contemporary Wim van Est.

58.

Rik Van Steenbergen said Fausto Coppi was "the first I knew who took drugs".