Gastone Nencini

Gastone Nencini (; 1 March 1930 – 1 February 1980) was an Italian road racing cyclist who won the 1960 Tour de France and the 1957 Giro d'Italia.

Nicknamed Il Leone del Mugello, "The Lion of Mugello" (from his birthplace Barberino di Mugello, near Florence), Nencini was a powerful all-rounder, particularly strong in the mountains.

He was an amateur painter and a chain smoker. He was a gifted descender. "The only reason to follow Nencini downhill would be if you had a death wish", said the French rider Raphaël Géminiani. It was in trying to follow Nencini down a mountain on Stage 14 of the 1960 Tour de France that Roger Rivière missed a bend, crashed over a wall and broke his spine.

Downhill race

Nencini's downhill race with Henry Anglade has become part of the legend of cycling. They met at a col in the Dolomites during the Giro d'Italia. The weather was bad, and a snowstorm had forced 57 riders to abandon that day. Anglade said:

I couldn't tolerate the idea that Nencini was the best descender of the peloton. I said to him, call the blackboard man, we'll do the descent together and whoever comes second pays for the aperitifs this evening. So he called the ardoisier and asked him to follow us. The road was of compressed earth. We attacked the drop flat out. I let Nencini take the lead so that I could see how he negotiated the bends before attacking him. In the end I dropped as though I was alone. At the bottom, I had taken 32 seconds out of him, written on the blackboard. I was really tickled. I had beaten Nencini. The next time I saw him was that evening in the hotel I was staying at. He had just bought me an apéritif!

Memory

At the Futa pass, on the mountains over his native Barberino di Mugello, a monument is placed to his memory: a big bronze bas-relief portrait of him racing and the inscription saying: "A Gastone Nencini. Il comune di Barberino, gli sportivi, i compagni di tante battaglie ricordano il campione mugellano" (translated from Italian: "To Gastone Nencini. The administration of Barberino, the sportsmen, the comrades of many battles remember the Mugello-born champion").thumb

Major results

1953

1954 4th GP di Prato 5th Giro dell'Emilia 1955 3rd Overall Giro d'Italia 1st Mountains classification 1st Stages 9 & 12

4th Road race, UCI Road World Championships 1956 1st Tre Valli Varesine 1st Stage 22 Tour de France 1st Stage 2b (TTT) Giro d'Italia 3rd Giro di Campania 7th Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria 1957

1st Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria 3rd Giro di Campania 3rd Giro del Lazio 4th Road race, National Road Championships 6th Overall Tour de France 1st Mountains classification 1st Stages 10 & 18 6th Tour of Flanders 9th Overall Vuelta a España 1958 5th Overall Tour de France 1st Stage 19 5th Overall Giro d'Italia 1st Stages 10 & 18 5th Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria 8th GP di Prato 1959 2nd Overall Gran Premio Ciclomotoristico 1st Stage 6 3rd Overall Giro di Sardegna 6th Overall Paris–Nice 9th Giro di Toscana 10th Overall Giro d'Italia 1st Stage 9 1960

2nd Overall Giro d'Italia 1st Stages 5 & 10 2nd Giro di Campania 2nd Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria 3rd Milano–Torino 5th Overall Giro di Sardegna 5th Giro di Toscana 8th Road race, National Road Championships 8th Giro del Lazio 9th GP di Prato 10th Giro della Romagna 1961 2nd Trofeo Matteotti 3rd Overall Tre Giorni del Sud 7th Giro dell'Emilia 8th Tre Valli Varesine 8th Road race, UCI Road World Championships 1962 2nd Giro dell'Appennino 5th Overall Giro di Sardegna 8th Sassari-Cagliari 1963 5th Giro di Campania 7th GP di Prato 10th Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria 1964 2nd Züri-Metzgete 3rd Overall Tour de Romandie 8th Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria 1965 7th Grand Prix de Cannes

General classification results timeline

+ Legend — Did not compete DNF Did not finish