Ercole Baldini

Ercole Baldini, 1962

Ercole Baldini (* 26. January 1933 in Villanova di Forli ) was an Italian bike - professional .

Cycling career

Baldini began his cycling career in 1951. After Ercole Baldini had already broken the world hour record for amateurs with 44.870 km in 1954, he improved the generally accepted world hour record for professionals on September 19, 1956 on the Vigorelli Railway in Milan with 46.394 km . He exceeded the only three-month-old record of five-time Tour de France winner Jacques Anquetil by 235 m. Baldini turned pro in 1957 after becoming an Olympic road race champion in Melbourne in 1956 . Because of his championship titles and his successes, Baldini is considered a Campionissimo in Italy  - he is particularly popular in his central Italian homeland, Emilia-Romagna . In 1958 he won the professional road cycling championship .

Baldini, nicknamed Il Treno di Forlì (Italian = the train from Forli ), was successful on the track as well as in road cycling competitions . Above all, his great pace and clean driving style made him a successful time trialist - which he achieved with the mentioned hour record, the world championship title in the single pursuit as well as in various individual and pair time trials , such as the Trofeo Baracchi (four wins) and the Grand Prix des Nations proved. He also won the Grand Prix Forlì four times. Thanks to his well-trained all-rounder skills, he won the Giro d'Italia in 1958 .

successes

Legnano bike in the Museo del Ciclismo Madonna del Ghisallo , with which Baldini became world champion in 1958

1954

• World hour record for amateurs - 44.870 km

1956

• Amateur world champion in the 4,000 m individual pursuit

1957

• a stage of the Giro d'Italia
• Giro di Romagna
• Giro del Lazio
• Baracchi Trophy (with Fausto Coppi )

1958

• Hour record - 46.394 km
• four stages and overall ranking Giro d'Italia
• World Champion - Road Race
• GP Industria e Commercio
• Baracchi Trophy (with Aldo Moser)

1959

• a stage Tour de France
• Giro dell'Emilia
• Baracchi Trophy (with Aldo Moser)

1960

• GP des Nations

1961

• Baracchi trophy

1963

• Giro della Calabria

also

• three-time Italian champion (road and rail)

Teams

• 1957-1958 Legnano
• 1959 Ignis-Frejus
• 1960-1961 Ignis
• 1962 Ignis-Moschettieri
• 1963 Cynar
• 1964 Salvarani

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Swiss Cycling Association (ed.): SRB calendar 1961 . Grenchen 1961, p. 96 .

literature

• Rino Negri / Maurizio Rizzi: La storia di Ercole Baldini, il treno de Forli . Edizioni Ciclofer, 2000

Web links

Commons : Ercole Baldini  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ercole Baldini in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Ercole Baldini in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Ercole Baldini in the Tour de France database(French / English )
• Website about Ercole Baldini (Italian)
• Success list at "memoire-du-cyclisme.net" (French)