Giro!

Today the Giro starts. Achille, the Italian disabled man who I worked with in Oxford when I left Liverpool introduced me to the charms of the Giro D'Italia [Tour of Italy]. I have always followed it since. In the 80s this involved listening to French radio reports of the day's stage on very crackly am broadcasts. Then there might be a snippet in the paper the next day with the results on. To get up to speed I would buy a copy of the Gazzetta dello Sport in Soho and find the full results [translating the text was a lot less easy than doing the same from the French in L'Equipe]. Then Andy Hampston won [an American] then Stephen Roche and the coverage started to get a bit better. Now it is all over the TV, so I no longer rely on still photos of the race to capture its atmosphere; something has been lost.
This year Cavendish has already won a stage, and Wiggins is a favourite so even the BBC have dragged their parochial selves into giving the results.

The photo is of Gianni Bugno, a Giro winner in 1990, that I took just after he had won the World Championships in Stuttgart in 1991 - I was wandering around behind the stands and there he was with gold around his neck. I think his weariness contrasts with the joy and pride of those around.