Luigi Pontecchi

Luigi Pontecchi

Luigi Pontecchi (1898)
To person
Nickname	Gigi
Date of birth	September 12, 1876
date of death	April 3, 1921
nation	Italy
discipline	Track cycling
Most important successes
Italian track championships 1894 : - Standing races (amateurs) 1896 : - Sprint (professionals)

Luigi Pontecchi (born September 12, 1876 in Florence , † April 3, 1921 in Brucianesi ) was an Italian track cyclist .

1892, at the age of 16, Luigi Pontecchi won his first race on the velodrome of Livorno . As a prize he received a revolver with a carved handle from Minister Luigi Pelloux . Two years later he became the Italian amateur champion in the standing race . In 1896 he won the Italian championship in the professional sprint and was a celebrated star in his hometown at the time.

Pontecchi was known for his unbridled temperament and unusual way of life. He was involved in brawls or attracted attention through provocative behavior, which is why he received bans as a racing driver. When he started in an Italian national jersey one day after the fatal assassination attempt by the Italian anarchist Sante Geronimo Caserio on the French President Marie François Sadi Carnot in Paris in June 1915, he was insulted by the audience. Also at a race in Trieste he showed the three-colored Italian national jersey, which he had worn under a different jersey, although the Italian colors were banned by the Austrian authorities there; Police tried to prevent him from completing the lap of honor. In Berlin he had to spend a night in prison after a race because of a fight. After his cycling career , he was often seen on horseback in the Florentine Parco delle Cascine , accompanied by the actress Virginia Reiter .

Pontecchi, who had had a glass eye since 1895 after suffering from an eye disease, was a staunch fascist from the very beginning. On April 3, 1921, he boarded a plane, which was piloted by the aviator ace Vasco Magrini , to drop fascist propaganda leaflets in the vicinity of Florence. The plane caught fire and crashed. Pontecchi died and Magrini suffered serious burns. Magrini was convinced that the plane had been shot at by anti-fascist peasants, but this could not be proven.

The funeral of Pontecchi was celebrated as a fascist event. The later regime of Mussolini counted Pontecchi among his " martyrs " and a cycle track and a nursing home were named after him. In addition, a combat league of the black shirts in Florence, the "Squadra Luigi Pontecchi ", bore his name.

Web links

Commons : Luigi Pontecchi  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Luigi Pontecchi in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Story of Luigi Pontecchi. Museo del Ciclismo "Gino Bartali", accessed on February 16, 2014 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} LUIGI PONTECCHI… .. "Il ciclismo (quello pericoloso) è il mio mestiere." In: cyclemagazine.eu. Retrieved May 29, 2016 (Italian). 
2. ↑ Vasco Magrini. (No longer available online.) Aero Club Firenze, archived from the original on March 3, 2014 ; accessed on February 16, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ Annali di Storia Firenze III . University Press, Florence 2008, pp. 198 (Italian, storiadifirenze.org [PDF; accessed February 16, 2014]).
4. ↑ SQUADRE D. (No longer available online.) In: fascismo22.altervista.org. Archived from the original on May 29, 2016 ; Retrieved May 29, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ↑ Alessandra Staderini: La "Marcia dei martiri": la traslazione nella cripta di Santa Croce dei caduti fascisti. In: fupress.net. Retrieved May 29, 2016 (Italian).