Coppi and Mercx
looks like Fausto Coppi missed a good few wins due to world war 2 stopping the TDF and other races. hard to say, but perhaps he was as good as Mercx...awesome palmares, 5 giros, 2 TDFS, 1 worlds, 3 San Remo, the hour, Lombardy 5 times and Fleche...what a CV!!!
his lifestory is kinda fascinating...the pope didn't like him cause he had an affair and Gino bartali drove back along the route of a stage to find the phial of drugs suspected he'd seen coppi disgard on the road..
] "Bartali always suspected that Coppi took drugs. On the hairpins of the Col di Bracco, during a stage of the 1946 Giro from Genoa to Montecatini Terme, Coppi drank from a glass phial and threw into the verge. Bartali drove back after the race and found it. He said:
“ With the meticulous care of a detective collecting evidence for fingerprinting I picked it up, dropped it into a white envelope and put it carefully in my pocket. The next day I rushed round to my personal doctor and asked him to send the phial to a lab for analysis. Disappointment: no drug, no magic potion. It was nothing more than an ordinary tonic, made in France, that I could have bought without a prescription.[17] ”
“ I realised that I should have to try to outsmart him and I devised my own investigation system. The first thing was to make sure I always stayed at the same hotel for a race, and to have the room next to his so I could mount a surveillance. I would watch him leave with his mates, then I would tiptoe into the room which ten seconds earlier had been his headquarters. I would rush to the waste bin and the bedside table, go through the bottles, flasks, phials, tubes, cartons, boxes, suppositories – I swept up everything. I had become so expert in interpreting all these pharmaceuticals that I could predict how Fausto would behave during the course of the stage. I would work out, according to the traces of the product I found, how and when he would attack"[i/]
his lifestory is kinda fascinating...the pope didn't like him cause he had an affair and Gino bartali drove back along the route of a stage to find the phial of drugs suspected he'd seen coppi disgard on the road..
] "Bartali always suspected that Coppi took drugs. On the hairpins of the Col di Bracco, during a stage of the 1946 Giro from Genoa to Montecatini Terme, Coppi drank from a glass phial and threw into the verge. Bartali drove back after the race and found it. He said:
“ With the meticulous care of a detective collecting evidence for fingerprinting I picked it up, dropped it into a white envelope and put it carefully in my pocket. The next day I rushed round to my personal doctor and asked him to send the phial to a lab for analysis. Disappointment: no drug, no magic potion. It was nothing more than an ordinary tonic, made in France, that I could have bought without a prescription.[17] ”
“ I realised that I should have to try to outsmart him and I devised my own investigation system. The first thing was to make sure I always stayed at the same hotel for a race, and to have the room next to his so I could mount a surveillance. I would watch him leave with his mates, then I would tiptoe into the room which ten seconds earlier had been his headquarters. I would rush to the waste bin and the bedside table, go through the bottles, flasks, phials, tubes, cartons, boxes, suppositories – I swept up everything. I had become so expert in interpreting all these pharmaceuticals that I could predict how Fausto would behave during the course of the stage. I would work out, according to the traces of the product I found, how and when he would attack"[i/]
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Comments
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No way to compare them, but Coppi was always the rider Merckx measured himself against.
Along with Hinault, I would say the three most complete riders ever.It's a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don't quit when you're tired. You quit when the gorilla is tired.0 -
Thought Coppi won P-R as well didn't he?
Yep Coppi, Merckx and Hinault really stand out as the most complete posr WW2 riders hands down.0 -
eh wrote:Thought Coppi won P-R as well didn't he?
Yep Coppi, Merckx and Hinault really stand out as the most complete posr WW2 riders hands down.
yea, 1 Paris Roubaix...what a guy...must have been quite exiciting as a era for anyone following the sport back then0 -
I'm looking forward to the book about Coppi this year. Out in June I think.
I've always been a fan and his life story seems a little bit wierd and mystical. Scandal and a terribly sad ending to the story.
I think if WW2 hadn't got in the way he would've been the greatest cyclist ever.Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
and Gino bartali won the TDF pre WW2 -1938 and once post WW2 -1948 giving him the largest gap between TDF wins ever...so also would have had a different palmares. Just reading , Coppi won the 1946 Milan San Remo by 14 minutes after attacking 5km into the event with nine others and dropping them on the turchino :shock: :shock:iainf72 wrote:I'm looking forward to the book about Coppi this year. Out in June I think.
I've always been a fan and his life story seems a little bit wierd and mystical. Scandal and a terribly sad ending to the story.
I think if WW2 hadn't got in the way he would've been the greatest cyclist ever.0 -
Both Coppi and Bartali remind me of a football league team. A few points behind the leader, but with games in hand.
In their cases a lot of games! Bartali lost his entire "prime" to the war.
Coppi's POW diet can't have been great.
7 years out of the middle of a career is one hefty chunk.
Yet there are "fans", who dismiss them out of hand, just because they aren't from the modern era.
All the more reason to admire their greatness, IMO."Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.0 -
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Has anyone read the Jacques Augendre book Fausto Coppi?
Any good?0 -
redddraggon wrote:Dave_1 wrote:Just reading , Coppi won the 1946 Milan San Remo by 14 minutes after attacking 5km into the event with nine others and dropping them on the turchino :shock: :shock:
Do you reckon that would have happened if they had radios back then?
no way, think 1991...also similar to 46...break went at start. race radios are a scourge as bad I suppose as the doping in terms of changing outcomes from what would happen0 -
Agreed Dave_1 - here's hoping Prudhomme finally makes good on the prmosie to limit their use at the Tour.
Coppi and Bartali are fascinating characters in many ways symbolising pre and post war Italy. If Coppi was the better cyclist, then arguably Bartali was the greater man - his work getting Italian jews to safety in the face of enormous personal danger has seen him dubbed 'cycling's Oscar Schindler'. The fact that he never talked about it during his lifetime and that it only emerged when some old documents were uncovered makes him even more extraordinary.0 -
Dave_1 wrote:
no way, think 1991...also similar to 46...break went at start. race radios are a scourge as bad I suppose as the doping in terms of changing outcomes from what would happen
It was Lemond who brought them in, wasn't it? I recall him with a mic poking out his Giro helmet in 90 or 91.Fckin' Quintana … that creep can roll, man.0 -
Lets not forget Jacques Anquetil though. He too was able to demolish the opposition. Also his training plan that his race preparation consisted of 'champagne,a pheasant and a woman' the night before the race is one I could heartily agree with
M.Rushton0 -
mrushton wrote:Lets not forget Jacques Anquetil though. He too was able to demolish the opposition. Also his training plan that his race preparation consisted of 'champagne,a pheasant and a woman' the night before the race is one I could heartily agree with
And the rest...
I do really yern for the days of more suffering! Makes riders like Coppi and Bartolli somehow more worthy. I secretly want everypro road race surface to be like P-R is today. Wish cycling could get good proper rivalries going like Anquetil and Poulidor or Coppi and Bartoli... Always seems a bit more sanitised today, but that might just be the romanticising of history...Note: the above post is an opinion and not fact. It might be a lie.0 -
Timoid. wrote:No way to compare them, but Coppi was always the rider Merckx measured himself against.
Along with Hinault, I would say the three most complete riders ever.
Completely different eras obviously but for the war Coppi may have have a palmares at least on par with Merckx remarkable when you consider that as a kid he suffered from malnutrition and had problems with brittle bones and during his lifetime had something like 27 serious bone injuries. His life both on and off the bike is a fascinating subject.
MGGasping - but somehow still alive !0 -
Dave_1 wrote:eh wrote:Thought Coppi won P-R as well didn't he?
Yep Coppi, Merckx and Hinault really stand out as the most complete posr WW2 riders hands down.
yea, 1 Paris Roubaix...what a guy...must have been quite exiciting as a era for anyone following the sport back then
Yea i think it would have been but looking at it from todays era it must have been hard to keep up to date with what was going on the cycling world. Obviously there was no instantaneous results service or news feeds like there is today.
MGGasping - but somehow still alive !0 -
Moray Gub wrote:Dave_1 wrote:eh wrote:Thought Coppi won P-R as well didn't he?
Yep Coppi, Merckx and Hinault really stand out as the most complete posr WW2 riders hands down.
yea, 1 Paris Roubaix...what a guy...must have been quite exiciting as a era for anyone following the sport back then
Yea i think it would have been but looking at it from todays era it must have been hard to keep up to date with what was going on the cycling world. Obviously there was no instantaneous results service or news feeds like there is today.
MG
true...fans would have had to likely travel long distances as not enough media to keep thjem updated...am not sure exactly what media reporting was in those days...there were very few television sets in the UK pre WW2...so would be a case of travel overland if you were hardcore cycling fan to see a race...or listen on the radio....would've been frustrating waiting for the results from races for sure...3 days on..0 -
teagar wrote:mrushton wrote:Lets not forget Jacques Anquetil though. He too was able to demolish the opposition. Also his training plan that his race preparation consisted of 'champagne,a pheasant and a woman' the night before the race is one I could heartily agree with
And the rest...
I do really yern for the days of more suffering! Makes riders like Coppi and Bartolli somehow more worthy. I secretly want everypro road race surface to be like P-R is today. Wish cycling could get good proper rivalries going like Anquetil and Poulidor or Coppi and Bartoli... Always seems a bit more sanitised today, but that might just be the romanticising of history...
Interesting this, the book i'm reading on the moment is about how much of cycling is based on a hjstory which never actually happened... The organisers of the early editions of Paris-Roubaix were keen to avoid the Pave, including it only in the last 30km and in pretty tame sections then, the major difficulty was figured to be a small climb about 2/3s of the way through that reduced some riders to pushing. Likewise the Muur of Gerardsbergen was only introduced into the Ronde in 1981."In many ways, my story was that of a raging, Christ-like figure who hauled himself off the cross, looked up at the Romans with blood in his eyes and said 'My turn, sock cookers'"
@gietvangent0 -
disgruntledgoat wrote:
Interesting this, the book i'm reading on the moment is about how much of cycling is based on a hjstory which never actually happened... The organisers of the early editions of Paris-Roubaix were keen to avoid the Pave, including it only in the last 30km and in pretty tame sections then, the major difficulty was figured to be a small climb about 2/3s of the way through that reduced some riders to pushing. Likewise the Muur of Gerardsbergen was only introduced into the Ronde in 1981.
What's the book? It sounds interesting - but if it debunks some of the great stories of the very early years (pre WW2) then I'm not sure I want to know.Twitter: @RichN950 -
RichN95 wrote:disgruntledgoat wrote:
Interesting this, the book i'm reading on the moment is about how much of cycling is based on a hjstory which never actually happened... The organisers of the early editions of Paris-Roubaix were keen to avoid the Pave, including it only in the last 30km and in pretty tame sections then, the major difficulty was figured to be a small climb about 2/3s of the way through that reduced some riders to pushing. Likewise the Muur of Gerardsbergen was only introduced into the Ronde in 1981.
What's the book? It sounds interesting - but if it debunks some of the great stories of the very early years (pre WW2) then I'm not sure I want to know.
Is it Benjo Maso's The Sweat Of The Gods? If so, every cycling fan has an obligation to read it.0 -
It was Sweat of the Gods yeah. It's a great read, and is convincing in it's argument that the media influence the kind of racing we see"In many ways, my story was that of a raging, Christ-like figure who hauled himself off the cross, looked up at the Romans with blood in his eyes and said 'My turn, sock cookers'"
@gietvangent0
