Description
1982 World Champion
Giuseppe Saronni born on 22nd of September 1957 in Novara, Piedmont only by
birth, he grew up in Parabiago at the
outskirts of Milan. He joined the young cycling through the track where he
learned skills, expertise and cunning.
As a junior arrives at the European title as an amateur and the speed is
selected for the Olympics in Montreal in 1976 where he is eighth in trying to
chase with Callari. "Child prodigy" in the minor categories (127
claims) is authorized to change category to 19 and a half years: professional
since 1977, wears the jersey of Juventus Scic and soon proves to have the
numbers. The large jump takes place on 23rd of February of that year, the
Trofeo Laigueglia race of the season. It is second before the world champion
Freddy Maertens.
Even on the track shows his skills while not giving up too much space in a
specialty that does not attract him much. Two of his brothers have played at
his side, in his teams, tasks among professionals: Antonio (Italian cyclo-cross
champion in '79, '80 and '83) and Alberto.
In 1979 pink jersey in Milan. He is only 21 years and 8 months, arrival is at
the Arena in the great temple of athletics, the race is decided in the time
trial in San Marino where Beppe wins wearing the pink jersey that does not give
most of their opponents, making it one of the youngest winners in the history
of the Tour.
Face eternal child, was the anti-Moser par excellence, the other side of
cycling. You had to take sides, or cheering the one or the other: Moser was the
character and the controversy; Saronni, often cunning to wait for a sprint to tuck
his opponents.
The Lombard rider has one of the richest prize list for both the quantity and
the quality of the statements. Natural talent of rare quality, touched the
highest levels of performance in the 14 months went from February '82 to June
'83: he won a second tour in 1983, after the fall of 1982 had triumphed at the
World Championship in Goodwood, in Britain, defeating a phenomenal flying the
American Greg LeMond. That famous sprint past the annals as the "shot
Goodwood", remains one of the most stunning and fantastic athletic
movements of all time.
Please note the member Saronni the lack of a triumph in the Tour de France,
where it ran ever except once at the end of his career, when he decided to take
part in the first stages to test the air in the grand boucle before retiring.
In the mid-eighties his form declined early. He gave up racing in 1991,
becoming the team manager of the Lampre-Caffita, with which he won two “Giro
d’Italia” races: in 1996 and 2001; many fans consider Saronni as the only long-distance
rider- sprinter in cycling history to have won a major stage race.
He wore the pink jersey 49 times and has always competed on bicycles from
Ernesto Colnago with the manufacturer Lombard forming a matched pair that has
known only a few moments of crisis.
