29 Facts About Ottavio Bottecchia

Ottavio Bottecchia was found injured and unconscious by a roadside and died a few days later; the exact circumstances of his accident remain a mystery.

Ottavio Bottecchia went to school for just a year, first working as a shoemaker, then as a bricklayer.

Ottavio Bottecchia endured a gas attack on 3 November 1917 after the battle of Caporetto while providing covering fire for retreating forces.

Ottavio Bottecchia's family continued to struggle with poverty, and his youngest daughter died in 1921 at the age of seven.

Ottavio Bottecchia returned to Italy where he took up competitive cycling.

Ottavio Bottecchia won the Giro del Piave, the Coppa della Vittoria, and the Duca D'Aosta in 1920 and the Coppe Gallo an Osimo, the Circuito del Piave and the Giro del Friuli in 1921.

Ottavio Bottecchia was given a racing bicycle by Teodoro Carnielli, president of a cycling association, the Associazione Sportiva di Vittorio Veneto.

In 1923 Ottavio Bottecchia placed fifth in the 11th Giro d'Italia, the highest finish by an 'isolate'.

Ottavio Bottecchia's position attracted the leading French rider, Henri Pelissier, who asked Bottecchia to join his professional team, Automoto-Hutchinson.

Ottavio Bottecchia's clothing was ragged and his shoes so old that they no longer had any shape.

Ottavio Bottecchia's ears stuck out so far that the Tour organiser, Henri Desgrange referred to him as "butterfly".

Ottavio Bottecchia led the Tour from Cherbourg after the second stage and wore the yellow jersey of leader as far as Nice.

In 1924 Ottavio Bottecchia won the first stage of the Tour and kept his lead to the end, the first Italian to win.

Ottavio Bottecchia won the Tour again in 1925 with the help of Lucien Buysse, who served as the first domestique in Tour history.

Ottavio Bottecchia was never the same after that and dropped out, "weeping like a child", during a thunderstorm in 1926.

Ottavio Bottecchia abandoned the Tour of 1926 on a stage which those who were there described as apocalytpic because of the cold and the violence of the wind.

Ottavio Bottecchia feared that he'd been 'cut down by a bad illness'.

Ottavio Bottecchia coughed and he ached in his back and his bronchial tubes.

Ottavio Bottecchia returned to Italy from France because of the death.

On 3 June 1927, a farmer outside the village of Peonis, near Ottavio Bottecchia's home, found him on the roadside.

Ottavio Bottecchia's skull was cracked, one collarbone and other bones broken.

Ottavio Bottecchia's bike lay some distance away on the verge and was undamaged.

Ottavio Bottecchia was carried to an inn and laid on a table.

Ottavio Bottecchia rode to his friend Alfonso Piccini's house to go training together as on other days.

Piccini decided not to go and Ottavio Bottecchia went to see another friend, Riccardo Zille.

Ottavio Bottecchia had other things to do so Bottecchia set out alone.

Ottavio Bottecchia named a supposed godfather, although nobody of the name was ever found.

In 1926, Ottavio Bottecchia began working with frame-maker Teodoro Carnielli to manufacture racing bikes, taking advantage of his Tour de France knowledge.

Ottavio Bottecchia is mentioned at the end of Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.