Zurich, Switzerland. Saturday, August 25, 1923. Road Cycling World Championships, at that time reserved exclusively for amateurs. It's raining. An azure rider, perhaps still drowsy, perhaps distracted, falls. His knee bruised, bleeding. The bike, a pedal twisted, contorted. Ten minutes to the start. He enters a workshop. Asks for help, no one understands him. So he takes pliers and hammer, fixes it, rushes to the starting line. Last at the start, first at the finish.
Libero Ferrario was celebrated last Wednesday, at 10:30, in the Council Hall of the Municipality of Parabiago, in Piazza della Vittoria 7, with the issuing of a postage stamp dedicated to him and his world-class feat. Ferrario was born in Parabiago 22 years earlier, on June 24, 1901, the fourth of five children in a wealthy family, his father a wholesale wine merchant and already mayor of the same town in Milan. At eight years old, Libero discovers the charm of cycling: the Tre Coppe di Parabiago is being contested, 240 km, first Canepari, second Galetti, third Oriani, a podium - Lombard - of champions. But the spark ignites the day before, when Giovanni Gerbi, the Red Devil, sitting at the Caffè Centrale in Parabiago, winks at Libero, hands him a 20-cent coin and asks him to buy "La Gazzetta dello Sport". Libero flies, purchases, returns. Gerbi says thank you and leaves him three cents in change. Libero, already satisfied with the unexpected encounter and perhaps also with the unsolicited thanks, refuses, almost offended.
A good rider, Ferrario. In 1922 he wins his first great victory, the Coppa Bernocchi. In 1923 he wins the Cremona-Vernasca-Cremona, then the Hundred Kilometers in pairs in Cremona, with his partner being Tito Brambilla, grandfather of Beppe Saronni, then dominates the Coppa Gloria, the Brianteo Circuit and the Busto Arsizio Cup, before excelling at the World Championships. 1924 is less fortunate: fourth at the World Championships, but first in the Tre Valli Varesine and the King's Cup. Fate awaits him shortly after: Libero, a prisoner of tuberculosis, dies before reaching 29 years old.
But Parabiago and cycling have not forgotten him. The postage stamp and two years ago, a book, "L'Italia che vola" (Ediciclo, 176 pages, 18 euros), which links two citizens of Parabiago, riders and world champions: Libero Ferrario in 1923 and Beppe Saronni in 1982. "Libero still runs on the silent streets of memory - writes Claudio Gregori -. Raises clouds of dust. Challenges the saber slashes of the storm. Nourishes nostalgia, certainly, but also hope. Thinking of him, in fact, we are supported by a thought from Jerome Klapka Jerome: 'Let's hope for an afterlife where bicycle seats are made of rainbows and stuffed with clouds'. Libero is there. With his rainbow jersey. Immortal".