Climbing the 200 Years of Donegani's Stelvio
in the name of Torriani, Hinault, Panizza and… Bernaudeau
This time we start from the… bottom, from Sondrio. Right here, a stone's throw from where the Mallero flows into the Adda, in 1980 the decisive act of the first of the three pink victories – in three participations! – of Bernard Hinault at the Giro d'Italia was celebrated.
That afternoon, among the crowds that are now hard to see, Jean-Renè Bernaudeau, a gregarious rider of the Breton “Badger”, crossed the finish line. Captain Hinault let himself go with a gesture of gratitude towards the “domestic” from Vendée and in any case he wore the lead jersey as his own, which at the start from Cles was on the shoulders of Wladimiro “Miro” Panizza, who bounced on the occasion from the 36 hairpin bends of the climb and rolled along the 40 of the descent four minutes behind the Breton.
The tactical intelligence of helmsman Cyrille Guimard, the dedication of Bernaudeau and the prowess of Hinault brought Renault what would later be coined as the Never-Ending Trophy of the Gazzetta's flagship event.
Shortly thereafter, Bernaudeau opened a restaurant in his Vendée with an explanatory sign: “Stelvio”.
During the autumn of 1979, “Patron” Vincenzo Torriani had been accompanied to Brittany by his friend Gian Maria Dossena and Rino Negri, respectively the imaginative colourist and cycling columnist of the Gazzetta dello Sport at the time when the race organiser and the parent newspaper were in good spirits and collaborated actively in every situation. In great secrecy, “those three” had gone hunting for the rising French star who had just won a second consecutive yellow jersey on the Champs-Elysées. And they found him, even overcoming the reserve of the locals who at times bordered on silence!
Having guaranteed that “Blaireau” Hinault would prepare a friendly route in Italy for the 63rd edition – decisive time trials and long climbs – Torriani-Dossena-Negri and the driver who usually worked as a taxi driver in Milan – left Quessoy and Yffiniac, near Saint-Brieuc, and returned to Italy, leaving the Patron with the task of building the scenario in a few months for the great clash between the winner of the last two Tours and the new boss of the 1979 Giro d'Italia, Giuseppe “Beppe” Saronni.
In May 1980, Torriani's project came to fruition with the cherry on the pink cake of Hinault's feat on the Stelvio – indeed! – in a race in which lieutenant Panizza had pretended to be captain to the detriment of Saronni, who was nevertheless capable of stringing together seven partial victories, putting himself between the one predestined for success (Hinault) and the young Italian leader of that period (Saronni).
Objectives achieved by everyone, therefore: by Torriani who called for an event of the highest international level with the best actors of the moment; by the Gazzetta who proposed an extraordinary edition of their son with the best image; and by Hinault, who returned home as a triumphant.
Yes, we are still here, someone would sing: in Sondrio, to retrace the path of that sporting feat written 45 years earlier. In mid-2025, we are in the midst of the celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the Stelvio state road commissioned by the Congress of Vienna between 1814 and 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic wars, to unite, precisely, Vienna to the subjugated Milan, crossing the 2.757 meters (or 2.758?, as some say, who knows...) of the Pass which for cycling is synonymous with Cima Coppi, that is, the highest point of the Giro d'Italia when it passes through those parts, and for geography, considering that it is the point of connection of the Val Venosta in Trentino Alto Adige with the Valtellina in Lombardy.
Although 9 years and a month have slipped away since that 5th June 1980, the memories tied to cycling risk suffocating the majesty of the history of the road built by Italian piece-workers – 700 or 800 in all – under the strict surveillance of the Austrians. The literary hypotyposis and the memories experienced first-hand at the Giro are much more present in our minds than what we have read and reread over time about the undertaking that seemed impossible to everyone except its creators.
Despite the winter breaks from October to April, despite the mechanical means that two centuries ago were certainly not comparable to those of today, in 5 years the immeasurable sacrifices of the workers brought to completion the project of the engineer Carlo Donegani, who from Valchiavenna to Valtellina, from Spluga to Stelvio to… Zurich (and not only) was the archistar of the time. From Bormio to the Stelvio Pass and then down towards Spondigna: 34 hairpin bends with your nose in the air and 40 “U” curves up to the Trentino destination to overcome 1.533 meters of altitude difference uphill and 1.858 downhill with averages always around 9% so as to allow the horses to pull the carriages with passengers or goods. Eight roadmen to get to the top and who knows how many more to reach the kingdom of Gustav Thoeni, prince of Alpine skiing on the slopes of the whole world and then hotelier at the Bellavista in Trafoi.
There, in the Cantoniere, horses, coachmen, and wayfaring passengers were rested. Now they are reassuring sights for those who climb the mountain moloch. There are those who travel there by bicycle, including those with pedal assistance; those on foot; those on motorcycles; those in cars. Everyone huffs and puffs, women, men, engines. Even our Pajero Shogun who arrived here from Malta does not take it lightly: he will rest like us once we get up there where we will probably find someone from the Sertorelli dynasty, perhaps Egidio who from Bormio stretched out to Cervinia "because it snows more there than here", but always in love with his mountain where he returns at every turn.
Who are the Sertorelli? Read here:
https://www.scuolascibormiostelvio.it/scuola-sci-sertorelli-bormio/
It is the explanatory web summary of lives that have been intertwined since 1984 up and down the IV of the 8 Cantoniera thanks to Costante and his successors: guides, "skiers", champions, flag bearers at the Games in America, ski instructors... of everything and more. In 2026 they will see their snow kiss the Olympics for the first time at home thanks to Milan-Cortina. For now they want to enjoy the celebrations of the 200 years of the Road. The Stelvio Road, precisely. And we with them because without them on at least three occasions the Giro caravan - under our eyes as a reporter or behind our directives as Director of the most popular sporting event in Italy - would not have passed with many greetings to the challenges announced and then systematically experienced.
When the Stelvio is involved, the night before is a sleepless night. There is no comparison. It was the same that night in 1980 when Hinault took off at hairpin bend number 12, climbing up from Trafoi with Bernaudeau there in front and us behind the Breton in the Gazzetta editorial car driven by Giuseppe Vaccari with cycling columnist Rino Negri next to him in the front row. And what a fight between Negri and Torriani, who didn't want us to be in Hinault's slipstream and tried to push us forward for fear of who knows what foul or accident. Torriani, with Bruno Raschi next to him – the last of the cycling bards – in the flagship of the Giro, stood out of the roof to chase us away with whistles and with the checkered flag he beat on the bodywork of the enemy car...
Negri felt like the main protagonist of Hinault's arrival at the Giro for having accompanied Torriani and Dossena to Brittany. The "boss" felt like the host of a historic undertaking. Raschi felt like an eyewitness closer than any other journalist to the hero of the entire adventure. And I felt like a privileged spectator: period.
We mourn them all (except “Tasso” and Bernaudeau who are still very much alive, of course): Raschi, Torriani, Dossena, Negri, Panizza. They have gone in no particular order. Their faces marked by millions of emotions are always well imprinted in my eyes when I venture back to that day to the top of the Stelvio. Once again, cycling overlaps with the jewel of Donegani. But the Pajero will take us to the Pass to return to Donegani the homage for which we came all the way here in the two hundredth year of the inauguration of the mountain road par excellence, in the face also – or perhaps: above all – of the Col de la Bonette, which beyond the tricks of the French remains at 2.715 meters of true altitude.
Although desired by Austria, the Stelvio Road is a symbol of pure Italianness: the engineer who conceived it, the workers who built it, the road workers who once kept it operating and open even in winter, the ski schools, the explorers... All Italian. From Donegani to Sertorelli, who is right there in front of me with his face perpetually tanned thanks to the sun of Cervinia, which overlapped with that of the Stelvio and Bormio. And the drivers of the vintage cars who have made an appointment on Sunday 6 July early in the morning to climb up to the Pass before 10:30 am are mostly Italian, so as not to hinder those who will be called to the front row for the celebrations of the 200 years of life of a monument to Italianness, which continues to be very much alive and which keeps even the cyclists most in tune with the mountain to be climbed from Bormio, from Trafoi rather than from Santa Maria (Canton of Grisons, Swiss Confederation) anxious like never before.
Only one regret in having climbed up to the Cima allo Stelvio at times far from the events scheduled to underline the important narrative (twice as long as the years of the first Italian highway, for example: the Autolaghi Milano-Lainate-Como/Varese): why wasn't a great bike ride organized in the kingdom of those who know how to dream on a bicycle? Maybe Enjoy Stelvio Valtellina will let us fully enjoy the extraordinary landscape on August 30th... Maybe.
Ad maiora. As always.
Leave a comment (0)