· By Sartoria Ciclistica
Aperitivo con Giovanni Visconti e Enzo Vicennati
Saturday, MAY 20th at 19:30 (7:30pm) we will host in Sartoria Ciclistica a great cyclists and person, Giovanni Visconti.
registration is FREE but MANDATORY by CLICKING HERE as we have limited space :-)
«I did the first race in secret. It was my sister's communion day. We were on the terrace, where we gathered when relatives were there. At one point my father winks at me and we run away. It's 1991, I'm almost 8 years old and, as if that weren't enough, I finish last behind a little girl. Giovanni Visconti last behind a little girl: a really good start, isn't it?».
Giovanni Visconti, one year after his retirement from racing (March 2022) after a seventeen-year career among professionals, talks about himself in the book "Un primo, sessanta secondi".
The title – a pun on the passing of time – photographs with self-irony the correspondence, more or less arithmetic, between the occasions in which Visconti crossed the finish line first and the times, much more numerous, in which he only came close to success .
In over twenty years of cycling career, for every rare and hard-fought victory Visco has in fact tasted the bitterness of defeat, which in many cases presented itself with the mocking face of a placement. But for him it's not the results that speak so much as the stories of a life that has always put the bicycle at the centre. Stories can all be found in these pages.
Childhood in the streets of Palermo and the first races among thousands of sacrifices and adventurous trips; the intense and conflictual relationship with the father; the desire for redemption, and detachment, from Sicily but also the pride of one's origins, proudly never denied. Then the transfer and the new life in Tuscany and the birth of heated sporting rivalries, in particular the one with the other Sicilian transplanted on the slopes of Montalbano: Vincenzo Nibali.
Finally, the passage among the professionals where, in hundreds and hundreds of races, he lined up some successes, many defeats and many severe lessons. Giovanni Visconti didn't win as much as he dreamed of winning, or as much as many expected him to win. But he sweated every penny he earned in his career.
The book, written in friendly tandem with Enzo Vicennati, is a sincere legacy and a warm thank you to those who, along the cycling roads, knew him and loved him.