Word: bartali
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Last year emotion ran so high that French crowds yelled "Macaroni!" and "Dirty Fascists!" at the Italian team, and one superheated patriot knocked veteran Gino Bartali off his bike. The outraged Italian team withdrew, and the French Foreign Ministry sent formal regrets to the Italian ambassador. Tempers have since simmered down, but this year's route bypasses Italy, just in case of reprisals...
...bussed by the local beauty queen, wined & dined by the citizenry and allowed to wear the coveted yellow sweater (le maillot jaune). The eventual winner of the yellow sweater stands to gain some 5,000,000 /rancs ($15,000) in prize money and commercial premiums. When Italy's Bartali won in 1948, the Pope himself sent a telegram of congratulation and blessing...
Last month, when no cyclists from six countries (France, Italy, The Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland) gathered at the Paris start, 36-year-old Italian Veteran Gino Bartali was the obvious favorite. The Italian team captain, he had won in 1948, placed second a year ago. Italian strategy called for his younger teammates to carry the burden of the sprints, while Bartali saved, his sinewy legs for the rugged climbing over the Pyrenees and Alps...
...cyclists swung through the tip of Luxembourg and Belgium, then down the French coast, Italian tactics seemed to be paying off. Bartali was close to the leaders, and the Italian team had won five of the first nine laps. The French team had won only one lap, and French partisans began to get restless. When Italian Alfredo Pasetti won the ninth lap, Bordeaux fans greeted him with shouts of "Macaroni" and "Dirty Fascists...
...tenth lap was quiet enough (the French won it), but as the cyclists began the eleventh-lap climb into the Pyrenees, name calling turned to violence. Bartali, fighting for the lead, was knocked from his bike by a boisterous Frenchman, crashed into a heap with three other cyclists. French police restored order temporarily as Bartali remounted, but his teammates behind were pelted with stones and tomatoes when they pumped to the scene. Farther on, Bartali was nearly edged over a precipice by a speeding car. He won the lap, but he had had enough. He withdrew from the race...
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