Gino Bartali

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by FlashUNC

His reputation in the peloton was less stellar...

Big sigh........

[Aaron O]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Big sigh........

+1

I just finished reading Road to Valor. Sometimes being Jewish can make you cynical about people. Bartali is a reminder that great people are out there too.

Righteous among the nations.

[Saint Vitus]

http://forums.thepaceline.net/showthread.php?t=148372

[Brian Cdn]

Bartali presenting a trophy. High Park road race, 1974. Toronto.

[velomonkey]

Originally Posted by Aaron O

+1

I just finished reading Road to Valor. Sometimes being Jewish can make you cynical about people. Bartali is a reminder that great people are out there too.

Righteous among the nations.

+2 . . . the man did not have the support of his national team (as that's how the tour was raced back then) because he would not support fascism. When asked by the catholic church to help jews he did it - this was after he housed them with tremendous risk to him and his family. He used his fame to draw crowds and occupy the soldiers as jews used the fake documents he smuggled to board trains. He was imprisoned for days under suspicipn of working against the government and he never cracked.

He then came back and won the tour and raised the spirits of his nation after being war torn and on the wrong side of history.

Who gives a squirt of pee about his "reputation?"

[Aaron O]

Originally Posted by velomonkey

+2 . . . the man did not have the support of his national team (as that's how the tour was raced back then) because he would not support fascism. When asked by the catholic church to help jews he did it - this was after he housed them with tremendous risk to him and his family. He used his fame to draw crowds and occupy the soldiers as jews used the fake documents he smuggled to board trains. He was imprisoned for days under suspicipn of working against the government and he never cracked.

He then came back and won the tour and raised the spirits of his nation after being war torn and on the wrong side of history.

Who gives a squirt of pee about his "reputation?"

It's one thing to risk your life for your own tribe. It's another to risk your life for someone else's tribe because it's the right thing to do. This is a man of nobility.

There is a Yiddish proverb...I forget the exact wording, but it says when you give, do so without expectation and do it quietly. In other words - don't use your charity to advertise yourself (Ronald Mcdonald House). Do so from a desire to give. Baartali personifies this.

I'm supposed to care that a professional athlete was a bastard of a competitor?

[93legendti]

Supposedly Anquetil got his stepdaughter and stepdaughter in law pregnant. Bartali was a saint.

No one is perfect and the expectation of perfection is unreasonable at best. Why even bring it up here??? Did Gino do something to you?? Get some priorities.

I don't give a damn how his rivals viewed him. I don't think Hinault cared one bit how he was viewed.