The myth turns one hundred. Wednesday, 27 February 2019 at the Teatro Carignano in Turin was given the official start to the celebrations of the Campionissimo. A year for the 100th birthday of Fausto Coppi will be dedicated to the story to the memory to the emotion to the memory of a myth of sport and not only. It starts immediately here is the rich programme!
Fausto Coppi, the Campionissimo, the Heron, the lone man in the breakaway, the legend, was the most famous and successful rider of the golden age of cycling and among the greatest and most popular athletes of all time.
One hundred years have passed since his birth in Castellania on 15 September 1919. Born in this small town in the province of Alessandria, Fausto Coppi grew up between Novi Ligure and Tortona, working as a shop assistant and using his bicycle, at the time, only to make deliveries for 5 lire a week. And it was while riding the road through the hills on his way home that this tall, thin boy, who was endowed with unsuspected stamina, felt his passion for cycling grow, born from listening to the stories of the Novese champion Costante Girardengo. A love that, forged by discipline, led him to extraordinary victories, such as the Giro d'Italia, five times. An exceptional passer-by and formidable climber, his progress was also celebrated by the writer Dino Buzzati, who captured "the enchantment of pedalling that emerged from the infernal fatigue".
A year of events to mark the centenary. Fausto Coppi, an icon of Italian sporting history and an exceptional Piedmontese cyclist, is the subject of a packed calendar of meetings in the places where he lived, between Castellania, Novi Ligure and Tortona, in Turin and the surrounding area, and in Cuneo, the setting of his most famous feat, the 192 kilometre breakaway in the Cuneo-Pinerolo stage of the Giro d'Italia in 1949. È History of a champion. 100 years of Fausto Coppia project of the Piedmont Regioncarried out by the Foundation Readers' Circle e Teatro Stabile di Torino - National Theatrein collaboration with DMO Piedmont Marketing e Piemonte Dal Vivo.
Media partners La Stampa e Il Secolo XIX. The year dedicated to Fausto Coppi was born out of the synergy and dialogue between various Piedmontese organisations, which brought together skills, ideas, visions and stories to create an engaging programme, capable of celebrating, with its variety, the myth of the Heron and telling it to the new generations. Story of a champion features the participation of Alexala - Local Tourist Agency of the Province of Alessandria, Municipality of Castellania, Municipality di Novi Ligure, Municipality of Tortona, Chamber of Commerce of Alessandria, Casa Coppi, Colli di Committee Coppi, Sestriere Bike Committee, Municipality of Cuneo, Consorzio Turistico Terre di Fausto Coppi, Museum Alessandria Città delle Biciclette, Museo dei Campionissimi, Tortona Fast Club.
A great theatre reading, meetings, talks, bike tours, events for families and children, wheeled shows, exhibitions, books and art. An interweaving of experiences for everyone, designed to remember the protagonist of the national and international cycling scene, in his land, Piedmont, where this sport is history and tradition.
The guiding image. It is a work by Riccardo Guasco, illustrator and painter born in Alessandria in 1975. Influenced by cubism and futurism, by Picasso, Depero, Feininger, he draws with simple lines and few colors looking for the lightness of form and chromatic warmth.
In love with the poster as a means of communication useful for good image education, he mixes poetry and irony creating illustrations to make the eyes smile. On the occasion of the centenary of Fausto Coppi, the artist created the mural. The last kilometre450 square metres of colourful homage in the champion's home town of Castellania.
