Italy told by Vittorio Brumotti it gives you chills. He goes to find the most impenetrable drug dealing squares, unmasks the crafty people who park illegally in spaces reserved for disabled people, denounces the unfinished public works that cost a mountain of money (ours). And he (almost) always takes them: beatings, verbal insults, intimidation, threats.
Guinness bike trials champion, sent on a bike by The news spreadsnow in its thirty-seventh edition and broadcast every evening at 8.35pm on Canale 5, while, for twelve non-consecutive years, during the summer he has been at the helm of Paperissima Sprint.
Brumotti, you’re a bit like Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In winter it makes you think, in summer it makes you laugh.
«Strip it is the voice of the people, of the last, of those who do not have the strength, power and knowledge to be heard. A winning formula set up by Antonio Ricci and feared by the bad guys – bosses, dishonest, violent – who don’t want anyone talking about them on TV. Paperissima Sprint is winning for its lightness. Me, Marcia, Valentina and Gabibbo, with our funny gags, make people at home laugh.”
“100% Brumotti” is his nickname. What does it mean?
«It embodies my energetic and positive lifestyle. Those like me who practice freestyle (a creative cycling discipline with acrobatics and jumps, ed) is full of adrenaline, enthusiastic about life, goes faster than others and needs an outlet. If I hadn’t practiced this sport I would have ended up badly as happened to many other kids who lost their way due to difficult family and social conditions. Sport gives you discipline and helps you put your life in order.”
When it comes to Strip?
«In November 2008, obviously on board my bike. At the beginning I mainly denounced public waste, the unfinished works for which we spent so much money that we would have repaid the public debt and the artistic wonders to be protected alongside the FAI (Italian Environment Fund, ed) of which I later became an ambassador.”
Then he comes to deal with organized crime and drugs.
«It was 2017. First report on the shop in Corso Como in Milan, the youth nightlife area. The day after it was broadcast, hundreds of messages of compliments and encouragement to move forward arrived in the editorial office. The mothers called me in despair: “My son doesn’t go to school, I found a scale and a bag of banknotes hidden away from him.” And so they helped me trace the drug dealer in the area and, from this, to the drug dealer. Mothers and honest citizens are my eyes and ears on the field.”
How do you prepare these services?
«Sometimes I even do a week of stakeouts and collect anonymous reports from many people who feel abandoned by the State and provide me with precious details. I am not a journalist nor do I take the place of the police. I am a normal citizen who uses the media power of Strip to denounce and turn on a beacon. When we broadcast images of some bosses who are dealing drugs, the investigators acquire the material and begin to investigate.”
What are the most terrible drug dealing places?
«The suburbs of large cities are those where minors are most easily recruited. They are like the child soldiers of Asia or Africa. They don’t go to school and it is instilled in them that their life goal is to have a designer bag and shoes. Instead they should go to school and watch Paperissima Sprint.”
Where did you find it most difficult to enter?
«At the Zen in Palermo in 2018 they tried to shoot me. But the most difficult place is that of the Roman neighborhoods of San Basilio, Quarticciolo and Tor Bella Monaca where I have done several reports. Once I went to document the children who were dealing at night and they tried to attack me even though the police were accompanying me. In San Basilio, where in 2017 they tried to shoot me, there is Don Antonio Coluccia, my friend, who does extraordinary and delicate work to remove these kids from drug dealing but often the people of the neighborhood take it out on him. Where the State is absent or absent, mafias thrive. For this reason I help the initiatives of Don Coluccia and Don Ciotti which are very important.”
Vittorio Brumotti, who is the world bike trials champion, in 2018 after suffering an attack in the Zen neighborhood of Palermo during an investigation into drug dealing forr Striscia la Notizia
When were you most afraid?
«In December in Topolino Park in the Ponticelli neighborhood of Naples, I had to take refuge under the stairs because people wanted to lynch me by throwing stones and objects at me. The police had to intervene to free me.”
What had he discovered?
«A large drug dealing place run by a Camorra clan leader. People were furious that I brought all this up.”
Do you feel the weight of your work very much?
«Very much. If I get something wrong, even the indication of a place, I have to offer pastries or focaccias to the entire editorial staff of Strip».
How many attacks did he receive?
«Hundreds. Gunshots aside, I am attacked both verbally and physically. But we always win, at the end of the episode I smile and move on. I’m not Rambo, I’m Vittorio who rides a bike and sticks his nose into the distortions of this country. And I never say “shame” to anyone. If anything, only Gabibbo can say this.”
The latest attack?
«Last summer I was having dinner in a pizzeria in Finale Ligure, my city, and at a certain point some kids shouted at me for my reports on drugs. They told me: “Infamous”, “They should shoot you in the forehead”, “You’re a cop”. I smiled but no one, there were twelve of them, had the courage to approach me to talk to me. At a certain point several fathers and mothers and they came to defend me and show me their solidarity. Being “protected” by my parents was a great satisfaction.”
His other target is the crafty people who park on the stripes reserved for disabled people.
«You recognize them immediately because they have the pass but not the disabled person on board. It is a transversal vice that affects many, even professionals. Many, however, when they are discovered, pay the fine, which ranges from 80 to 200 euros, and don’t care until they are faced with a person who is in a wheelchair or terminally ill. We don’t impose a fine but we publicly invite them to admit their fool.”
What Italy is the one you tell Strip?
«A country that is moving too fast after Covid. People are much less patient, they want everything immediately and have become ruder. We argue a lot, even over the slightest thing. And robberies have increased. Luckily there are those who are committed to educating, from schools to families to parishes. We do television education to set an example for young people and make them understand that certain things are not done because the weakest are affected.”
Vittorio Brumotti, 44 years old, in 2009 in San Giovanni Rotondo in front of the remains of Saint Pio of Pietrelcina with Don Antonio Coluccia, 49, the anti-drug priest in the difficult neighborhoods of Rome, and Father Gregorio D’Arenzo, who passed away last April in 82 years old
Are you a believer?
«Very much. Faith gives an identity and is a compass to orient oneself in life. Every evening, while I stretch before going to sleep, I recite 25 times Our Father and just as muchHail Mary. And then I can count on a special friend.”
Who?
«Padre Pio. The first time I went to San Giovanni Rotondo on the advice of my father who had told me that he was the protector of the characters of the show. But the decisive thing happened later.”
Stories.
«In 2009 there was a public display of the saint’s remains. The mayor of San Giovanni Rotondo was a biker like me and when I went he invited me to touch the zinc lid of the coffin where the Friar’s body was kept. “If you’re not impressed, do it,” he told me. I did it and from that moment I felt like I had an extra boost, as if I had a clearer understanding of what my mission was. It was not a mystical experience but from that moment I saw Padre Pio in another light, as a special friend who, despite having been opposed by many, even within the Church, was loved by millions of people and his fame has spread throughout the world, even when there were no social media. As if his figure held millions of lives in an embrace. Finally, three years ago I went by bike from Livigno to San Giovanni Rotondo because I received a grace.”
What kind?
“I can’t say but I assure you it was great.”
In an interview he said that the myth he takes inspiration from is his father Claudio.
«Because he is a positive person, a 66-year-old boy, who gave me a sense of respect for the rules and the desire to work. Under my helmet there is a writing in Ligurian dialect, “son of Claudio”. He has a very important task: not to disappoint me.”
He has entered the Guinness Book of Records 12 times. What is the one you care about most?
«Climbing the Burj Khalifa skyscraper, in Dubai, with my bike. One hundred and sixty floors and three thousand steps in two hours and twenty minutes without ever stopping and putting my foot on the ground with a temperature of 38 degrees.”
The thought you have in the evening before going to sleep?
“I try to let out bad thoughts.”
