ARE YOU LOOKING DOWN ON ME?

By Hob | Heroes on Bike | 4 Aug 2021


1934 ~ Giro d'Italia, there was tension between Guerra and Camusso.

A bad wind was blowing between the two cyclists in the photo of cover.

That Giro was dominated by the Locomotiva Umana Learco Guerra, at the first victory in his career in the race, ahead of Francesco Camusso (the chamois) and Giovanni Cazzulani. The victory of Guerra was not easy: for two times in fact he went in crisis and lost the pink jersey, first in Bari-Campobasso, then in Florence-Bologna, when he lost 5 minutes on the direct competitors Camusso and Giuseppe Olmo. He redeemed himself in the second time trial to Ferrara, recovering the gap and finishing with 51 seconds of margin on Camusso.

b3412cd6471cab431e155d21c786d01b6cff5fd713680e3fa58f5d6e383d3772.jpg

Ph. Francesco Camusso aka Camoscio (chamois)

Already in 1931 the destinies of Guerra and Camusso crossed themselves. The 1931 Giro was rich as never before in twists and turns. The route was tailor-made for Learco Guerra, the "superman" that Mussolini's fascist party propaganda liked so much.

The Locomotiva Umana won the first two fractions and wore the first pink jersey in history.

The color of the jersey was inspired by the color of the pages of the Gazzetta dello Sport, organizer of the event, but it made the fascists turn up their noses because of the little virility expressed by those colors.

In the third stage, the tough stage Ravenna-Macerata of 288 kilometers, Guerra goes in crisis. The press will say that the cause are some annoying stomach problems. But that day they climbed several climbs, including the Passo della Scheggia and the Colle di Fossato, and Learco was certainly not a pure climber. Guerra lost over five minutes due to a crisis on the climb, and gave up the jersey to Alfredo Binda. In the sixth stage Binda was involved in a fall near the hippodrome of Villa Glori, and delayed had to give the jersey to Michele Mara. Binda will retire in the following stage. Just in the seventh stage, with arrival to Perugia, the symbol of the supremacy passed to Luigi Marchisio, Binda's helper, who maintained it until the end of the following stage, when he had to give it to Learco Guerra. In the ninth stage, between Montecatini Terme and Genoa, the super man in "pink" was however bumped from a fan and fell: wounded to the cost from the brake of the bicycle of an other cyclist, he was forced to the withdrawal. The jersey returned therefore to Marchisio, that played the final victory with others two Piedmontese, Luigi Giacobbe, gregario of Guerra, and Francesco Camusso.

After Giacobbe had dressed in pink in Cuneo, it was Camusso in the following Cuneo-Torino, he proved to be a great climber and strategist, but above all an excellent descender.

He managed to make the difference along the Sestriere descent going down like crazy (Just imagine the Sestriere descent in 1931: unpaved and dangerous, to be faced with a bike that could barely brake), arrived in Turin and undertook the last climb to Pino Torinese to then arrive alone and victorious at the Motovelodromo, winning the stage after a lonely escape of over 130 km and bringing home the final success.

Camusso was the first to win a Pink Jersey and thus entered into history. 

 

if you like this article subscribe to the blog and leave a like, it doesn't cost you anything and for me it is very meaningful.

if you like historical cycling take a look at the INSTAGRAM page and subscribe to the TELEGRAM channel.

 

Thanks for everything. Just a couple of more weeks of patience for a new HeroesonBike project regarding the #NFT world.

How do you rate this article?

7


Hob
Hob Verified Member

historical cycling passion, research in the past to learn something to exploit in the future!


Heroes on Bike
Heroes on Bike

This is the blog of the instagram page @heroesonbike You'll find extra content that I can't post due to space constraints in terms of writing character limits. I hope that opening this space will help spread the stories of cyclists that would otherwise go forgotten!

Send a $0.01 microtip in crypto to the author, and earn yourself as you read!

20% to author / 80% to me.
We pay the tips from our rewards pool.