Gastone Nencini
Nencini at the 1960 Tour de France
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| Personal information | |||||||||||||
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| Full name | Gastone Nencini | ||||||||||||
| Nickname | Il Leone del Mugello, Faccia di fatica (Fatigue-face) | ||||||||||||
| Born |
1 March 1930 Barberino di Mugello, Italy |
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| Died | 1 February 1980 (aged 49) Florence, Italy |
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| Team information | |||||||||||||
| Discipline | Road | ||||||||||||
| Role | Rider | ||||||||||||
| Professional team(s) | |||||||||||||
| 1953–1954 | Legnano | ||||||||||||
| 1955–1958 | Leo-Chlorodont | ||||||||||||
| 1959–1960 | Carpano | ||||||||||||
| 1961–1962 | Ignis | ||||||||||||
| 1963–1965 | Springoil-Fuchs | ||||||||||||
| Major wins | |||||||||||||
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Medal record
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Gastone Nencini (Italian pronunciation: [ɡaˈstoːne nenˈtʃiːni]; 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 del 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 that Roger Rivière missed a bend, crashed over a wall and broke his spine.
Nencini's downhill race with Henry Anglade has become part of the legend of cycling. Anglade was a proud rider and Nencini one of the fastest down hills. 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:
At the Futa pass, on the mountains over his native Barberino di Mugello, a monument is placed remembering him: a big bronze bas-relief portrait of him racing and the inscription which says: "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").
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