Bartali won a stage of the
1935 Giro d'Italia and was
King of the Mountains, the first of seven times he won the title in the Giro. He was 20. In 1936, before he turned 22, he won the Giro and the
Giro di Lombardia, although his season was marred when his brother, Giulio, died in a racing accident on 14 June. Bartali came close to giving up cycling. He was persuaded to return and, in 1937, won the Giro again. His reputation outside Italy was that he was yet another Italian who could not ride well outside his country. There was some truth in the claim. The writer
Tim Hilton said: "Bartali was essentially an Italian cyclist, a champion who rode within sight of his own people, and was uneasy when the Tour de France travelled north of Paris. He never disputed the northern classics." Stung by the claim, he rode the Tour de France in 1937. He got off to a bad start, losing more than eight minutes by the third stage and more than ten by the
Ballon d'Alsace, a mountain in the
Vosges. He took the leader's jersey in
Grenoble, with a 1m 14s lead. Later in the race, he and two helpers,
Jules Rossi and
Francesco Camusso, while crossing a wooden bridge over the river
Colau, Rossi skidded, causing Bartali to ride into a parapet and fall into the river.
Roger Lapébie wrote: "In the valley that leads to Briançon, I saw the accident to the
maillot jaune, Bartali. The narrow and bumpy road ran along the foot of a rock. Suddenly, Rossi, who was leading, took a bend badly, braked and his back wheel hit the parapet of a bridge. Bartali, who was beside Rossi, couldn't get clear and I saw him fall over the bridge and into the little river three metres below." Camusso pulled him out. Bartali was cut on his arm and knee and had trouble breathing because of a blow to the chest. He rode on to the end of the day, often pushed by his helpers. He finished 10 minutes behind the rest but kept his lead. He got through the Alps, by then having lost his jersey, and retired in
Marseille. In one account, before he dropped out, he notified the organiser,
Henri Desgrange, who said: "You are the first rider to come to see me before dropping out. You're a good man [
un brave garçon], Gino. We'll see each other again next year and you'll win." bicycle Bartali rode to victory in the
general classification of the
1938 Tour de France He did return in 1938 and overcame the teamwork of the Belgians, the cold and rain and a puncture on the
Col de l'Iseran. He won the hardest stage, from
Digne to
Briançon, by more than five minutes. The radio commentator
Georges Briquet, after he had seen the crowds of Italians greeting Bartali with green-white-red flags, said: "These people had found a superman. Outside Bartali's hotel at
Aix-les-Bains, an Italian general was shouting 'Don't touch him – he's a god.'" A public subscription was started in his name in Italy, and
Benito Mussolini was among the contributors. The approaching war led Italy not to send a team in 1939. Bartali won the
Giro d'Italia twice before the war – in 1936 and 1937 – and once after it (1946). He won
classics such as
Milan–San Remo, the Giro di Lombardia and the
Züri-Metzgete. His most famous victory was the
1948 Tour de France.
1948: Second Tour Bartali returned to the Tour in 1948 to find that many riders he had known had died in the war and that there were as many more who had started racing since he stopped (see below for Bartali's war record). He was so worried that he spent an evening memorising two dozen riders he did not know. The Tour started in a rainstorm, and Bartali found he could identify nobody because the whole field was wearing waterproofs. He took his chance and found he was with
Briek Schotte. The two finished together at
Trouville, and Bartali took the yellow jersey. It was during that Tour that the leader of the
Italian Communist Party,
Palmiro Togliatti, was shot in the neck by a sniper as he was leaving the parliament building. The writer
Bernard Chambaz said: History and myth united, and a miracle if you like because that evening Bartali got a phone call at his hotel. In a bad mood, dubious, he didn't want to answer. But someone whispered that it was
Alcide de Gasperi, his old friend from Catholic Action, now parliamentary president, who told him that
Palmiro Togliatti, secretary-general of the communist party, had been shot at and had survived by a miracle. The situation in the peninsula was very tense amid the ravages of the
Cold War. Italy needed Bartali to do what he best knew how to do, to win stages. ran into the chamber shouting 'Bartali's won the Tour de France!' All differences were at once forgotten as the feuding politicians applauded and congratulated each other on a cause for such national pride. That day, with immaculate timing, Togliatti awoke from his coma on his hospital bed, inquired how the Tour was going and recommended calm. All over the country political animosities were for the time being swept aside by the celebrations and a looming crisis was averted.
1950: Tour de France Bartali had a row during the 1950 Tour de France with the French rider
Jean Robic. Newspapers made much of it, and the atmosphere was tense. Robic got clear of Bartali on the
col d'Aubisque in the
Pyrenees. Bartali made up ground over the Tourmalet, took the descent to
Sainte-Marie-de-Campan and started up the
col d'Aspin. There, he caught Robic and the two rode together. The two rubbed shoulders, and they fell. Bartali said French fans by the road were so angry, accusing him of sabotaging Robic's chances, that they punched him, and one threatened him with a knife. Bartali remounted and won the stage.
Fiorenzo Magni, leading the Italian 'B' team, the
Cadetti, took the yellow jersey. The pair and their teams had barely returned to their hotel when Bartali said he was going home, and so, he said, were the two Italian teams. The affair escalated to the national level when the French foreign minister,
Robert Schuman, apologised to his Italian counterpart for what seemed to be no more than a man interrupted in the making of a sandwich.
René de Latour said: To say that Magni was sore is putting it very mildly indeed. When he spoke to men he could trust, he would say: 'Gino knows what his little game is. He is too clever to ignore the facts that he will be lucky to win this Tour, and he prefers a foreign team win rather than see one of our team succeed, especially me. It was bad enough for him with Coppi winning last year. ==Rescues and Resistance role during World War II==