Gastone Nencini

Gastone Nencini

Nencini at the 1960 Tour de France
Personal information
Full name	Gastone Nencini
Nickname	Il Leone del Mugello, Faccia di fatica (Fatigue-face)[1]
Born	(1930-03-01)1 March 1930 Barberino di Mugello, Italy
Died	1 February 1980(1980-02-01) (aged 49) Florence, Italy
Team information
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Professional team(s)
1953–1954	Legnano
1955–1958	Leo-Chlorodont
1959–1960	Carpano
1961–1962	Ignis
1963–1965	Springoil-Fuchs
Major wins
Grand Tours Tour de France General classification (1960) Mountains classification (1957) Giro d'Italia General Classification (1957)
Medal record Representing  Italy Road bicycle racing World Championships 1953 Lugano Amateur's Road Race
Infobox last updated on 1 April 2008

Gastone Nencini (Italian pronunciation: [ɡaˈstoːne nenˈtʃiːni]; 1 March 1930 – 1 February 1980) was an Italian road racing cyclist who won the 1960 Tour de France and the 1957 Giro d'Italia.^[2]

Nicknamed Il Leone del Mugello, "The Lion of Mugello" (from his birthplace Barberino del Mugello, near Florence), Nencini was a powerful all-rounder, particularly strong in the mountains.

He was an amateur painter and a chain smoker. He was a gifted descender. "The only reason to follow Nencini downhill would be if you had a death wish", said the French rider Raphaël Géminiani. It was in trying to follow Nencini down a mountain that Roger Rivière missed a bend, crashed over a wall and broke his spine.

Downhill race

Nencini's downhill race with Henry Anglade has become part of the legend of cycling. Anglade was a proud rider and Nencini one of the fastest down hills. They met at a col in the Dolomites during the Giro d'Italia. The weather was bad and a snowstorm had forced 57 riders to abandon that day. Anglade said:

I couldn't tolerate the idea that Nencini was the best descender of the peloton. I said to him, call the blackboard man,^[3] we'll do the descent together and whoever comes second pays for the aperitifs this evening. So he called the ardoisier and asked him to follow us. The road was of compressed earth. We attacked the drop flat out. I let Nencini take the lead so that I could see how he negotiated the bends before attacking him. In the end I dropped as though I was alone. At the bottom, I had taken 32 seconds out of him, written on the blackboard. I was really tickled. I had beaten Nencini. The next time I saw him was that evening in the hotel I was staying at. He had just bought me an apéritif!^[4]

Memory

At the Futa pass, on the mountains over his native Barberino di Mugello, a monument is placed remembering him: a big bronze bas-relief portrait of him racing and the inscription which says: "A Gastone Nencini. Il comune di Barberino, gli sportivi, i compagni di tante battaglie ricordano il campione mugellano" (translated from Italian: "To Gastone Nencini. The administration of Barberino, the sportsmen, the comrades of many battles remember the Mugello-born champion").

Teams

• 1953–1954 Legnano
• 1955–1958 Leo-Chlorodont
• 1959–1960 Carpano
• 1961 Ignis
• 1962 Ignis-Moschettieri
• 1963–1964: Springoil-Fuchs
• 1965 Filotex
• 1965 Springoil-Fuchs

Major achievements

Gastone Nencini with wife Bianca, wearing the pink jersey from the Giro d'Italia 1957

• Giro d'Italia (1957), overall classification and mountains classification
• Tour de France (1960), overall classification
• Tour de France (1957), mountains classification
• Tre Valli Varesine (1956)

Other results

• 2nd in the Giro d'Italia (1960)
• 2nd in the Trofeo Matteotti (1961)
• 2nd in the Giro dell'Appennino (1962)
• 2nd in the Züri-Metzgete (1964)
• 3rd in the Giro d'Italia (1955)
• 3rd in the Giro del Lazio (1957)
• 3rd in the Milano–Torino (1960)
• 3rd in the Tour de Romandie (1964)

Victories

Grand Tour results timeline

See also

• List of doping cases in cycling

Notes and references

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