Sunday 1 June Pope Leone XIV will kick off the last stage of the Giro d’Italia, which will start inside the Vatican walls. In less than a month after its election, the third meeting of Leone XIV will be with the world of sport, after the greeting with the tennis champion Jannik Sinner and the hearing with the Napoli football team, winner of the championship.
It will be a novelty to see a Pope starts a stage of the Giro who will wind through the Vatican for the first kilometers, but it must be said that the ties between the popes, the ride and the cycling champions has always been very close.
It was June 12, 1946, on a Wednesday, when Pius XII addressed a short greeting to the participants in the 29th edition of the Giro d’Italia. The meeting took place in the courtyard of San Damaso at the start of the Rome-Perugia stage. Pope Pacelli turned to the “young diletti” saying, among other things, that “your youthful ardor and your sports momentum make you particularly dear to our heart”. Then he continued with these words: “We have already manifested the affection that we nourish for you in this same place. However, we would now like to detect how the sport of the race deserves a special consideration, both in itself, and for its symbol value. The race matters and requires effort, a healthy effort, a harmonious effort of the whole body, an effort whose energy shows less with the violence of the changes or the courage of the discipline. prolonged and sustained constancy until the finish line. Spirit, and do not let yourself be stopped by any tiredness and any tripping, before having touched the mèta “. Finally, the wish: “Go, therefore, to the radiant sun of Italy, of your homeland, of which you know the natives shining beauties and of which you want to be worthy and intrepid champions. Go, or the brave runners of the earthly race and the eternal race. They accompany you our wish and our prayer, while of great heart we give all of you and all those who are interested in you and you are interested in you, Our paternal apostolic blessing “.
The blessing led to Gino Bartali, devoted militant of the Catholic action, who won the tour in front of Fausto Coppi and Vito Ortelli. Not surprisingly, on September 7, 1947, in a speech addressed to the members of the Catholic Action, Pius XIIPped for example “Your Gino Bartali”, who “has repeatedly earned the coveted ‘shirt'”.
Three years later, in 1949, Pius XII proclaimed the Madonna del Ghisallo patroness of the cyclists. On June 14, 1950, Pope Pacelli always received, at the general hearing, the cyclists participating in edition number 33 of the Giro d’Italia, who ended the day before Rome, at the Terme di Caracalla, with the victory of the Swiss Hugo Koblet (first foreigner to win the “Rosa” race) in front of Bartali.
We do not remember meetings between John XXIII and the world of cycling, but the death of Roncalli, on June 3, 1963, took place during the tour and the leader of the race, Franco Balmamion, as a sign of mourning he wore a black band above the pink jersey.
Paolo VI, Brescia as many cycling champions, welcomed the Giro d’Italia on Saturday 30 May 1964, after the stage with arrival in Castel Gandolfo. In his speech, Montini made his debut with these words: “We are happy and we are grateful to this visit! This is a stop, which makes us remember the passionate interest, with which we too, in our childhood, followed the news of the Giro d’Italia. It is a stage, which offers us the welcome opportunity, not only to remember the famous names of the great runners of the past years, but to know your names and to know about the names of your names. Of this always famous race! “.
Ten years later, on May 16, 1974, Paolo VI welcomes the Giro d’Italia again, departing from the Vatican. Marco Torriani, son of Vincenzo (organizer of the Giro for decades), was present and remembered the event with these words: “The Pope wanted to greet the lap by not looking out from the balcony, but from the stage specifically built for the circumstance, in front of which the corridors paraded with the flagships of the teams. For its part, the lap specifically changed the ceremonial of the Via bringing the bicycle and the ceremonies in front of the stage where Paolo VI greeted one by one all the runners, the managers of the organization, of the teams and journalists. Sergio Zavoli with a very excited Gino Bartali “. In his greeting, Paul VI defines the Giro “generous, strong, simple race, respectful of the values of the person”, to be indicated “to respect and emulation especially of young people, who must find in you, dear athletes, not an abstract ideal, but a concrete example of frugality, sacrifice, self-control, of commercialism, of fraternity, which encourages them to follow the paths of life”.
The photos of the event show Paul VI between the two greatest champions of the time: Felice Gimondi (with the world champion’s world champion won the year before in Barcelona) and Eddy Merckx. The hearing reserved a curious moment told by the journalist Gianfranco Josti: “Suddenly a moment of panic among the prelates who joined the pontiff and the organizers. A runner, Guerino Tosello, instead of kissing the ring to the pope, had embraced him by printing him two kisses on the cheeks”.
It should also be remembered that in 1972, in the message of Paul VI on the occasion of the opening of the Monaco Olympic Games, there was a hint of Eddy Merckx, another very believing athlete. The Pope urged to listen to the words of the Belgian champion, who had declared: “Christ for me is continuously present in my whole life. I deeply believe in him, his historicity, to his divinity”.
We have to wait for 2000, the year of Jubilee, to find the Vatican tour. Friday 12 May, the eve of the start of the race, the caravan of the runners (with the presence of illustrious ex such as Fiorenzo Magni, Merckx, Adorni and Gimondi) and of Olympic champions of Italian sport (among them Alberto Tomba, Jury Chechi, Valentina Vezzali and Giovanna Trillini) was received at the hearing by John Paul II. Had been working on the event for some time Candido Cannavòthe volcanic and visionary director of the Gazzetta dello Sport. Cannavò found an ally in the cardinal Crescenzio Sepewho also proved to be a cycling enthusiast (and Cannavò, to fear it good, was skilled in giving him a shirt autographed by Marco Pantani). In his speech Wojtyla, among other things, pays homage to the “noble figures of athletes who have made great cycling sport in Italy and in the world. At this moment the thought goes spontaneously to Gino Bartali, recently disappeared, great figure of sports, of an exemplary and convinced citizen of believing. His example remains for everyone a point of reference for how sport can be practiced with a great human and spiritual charge, making it a bright expression of it. higher values of existence and social coexistence “.
Speaking of Wojtyla, a sports pope, the memory of Ernesto Colnagobrilliant bicycle manufacturer from champions. Interviewed by Corriere della SeraColnago revealed that he had given John Paul II (who in Krakow “made about forty kilometers twice a week”), a gold -laminated racing bike. “But when I delivered it to him,” he added, “he explained that as a pontiff he could not go there. Then I went back to the factory and prepared a more touristy. He used it in Castel Gandolfo”.
Pope Francis also had a bicycle as a gift. He gave him the Colombian champion Egan Arley Bernal Gomez, winner of the Giro d’Italia 2021, at the end of the general hearing of June 16 of that year. “I greeted him and then the Pope started almost joking. He asked me how many cafes I take before climbing by bicycle. After I donated the bicycle and the pink jersey to Francesco. I told the Pope that they are gifts from the Colombians,” Bernal declared at the end of the meeting. Bergoglio was more passionate about football than cycling, but in his 2021 interview with Pier Bergonzi for La Gazzetta dello Sport He wanted to remember Gino Bartali’s commitment in favor of the Jews during the Nazifacsist persecutions.
Among other things, Francesco said: “It is said that he helped about nineteenth -century Jews, with their families, to save himself during the barbarism they were subjected to. He said that the good is done and is not said, otherwise what is good? The Yad Vashem considers him ‘right among the nations’, recognizing his commitment. Here is the story of a sportsman who left the world a little better than he found it”.
