Rino Benedetti

Rino Benedetti (born November 18, 1928 in Ponte Buggianese , † June 14, 2002 in Lucca ) was an Italian cyclist.

Athletic career

At the age of 20 Benedetti began to compete in larger races as a road rider with the amateurs . He celebrated his first national victory in 1949 at the Giro delle Due Province Marciana. He was most successful as an amateur driver in 1951. He first won the Swiss one-day race Giro del Mendrisiotto and was vice world champion of road drivers on home soil in Varese . In total, he won four road races as an amateur.

In the year of his amateur World Cup participation, Benedetti switched to the professional camp , where he initially joined the Italian racing team Legnano. This nominated him in 1952 for the Giro d'Italia , in which Benedetti won the 8th stage. In the overall ranking he was 48 out of 91 placed drivers. From 1952 to 1963 Benedetti took part in the Giro twelve times and won four stages. With rank 18 in 1956 and 1960 he achieved his best Giro results. When he competed in the Tour de France for the first time in 1955 , he had already switched to the Italian team Leo-Chlorodont. After only reaching 42nd place, he took part in the tour again in 1962. Although he was able to win a stage this time (22nd), he came in the final account among 94 drivers only 64th. He took part in the UCI World Championships in road racing in 1959, but retired from the race.

From 1957 Benedetti changed his racing team every year. In addition to Italian teams, he was also under contract with the Swiss racing teams Allegro and Tigra in 1958. In his professional driving career, which he ended in 1963 with the Italian team Cynar, he achieved 45 victories.

Web links

• Rino Benedetti in the Radsportseiten.net database
• Success at www.museociclismo.it (Italian)

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Luciano Boccaccini, Giovanni Tarello: Annuario Storico Del Ciclismo Italiano . Publialfa Edizion, Milan 1994, p. 58 (Italian).