THE SCHOOL OF HARL KNOCKS

The Giro dell’Emilia, like most of the Italian regional classics, was an itinerant event. Its financial model was underpinned by the fact that its start and finish would be sold to the highest bidder, but that all changed in 1999. Someone decided that Bologna, the dreamy regional capital, would heretofore host the finale, and that the race would conclude with two ascents of one of Italy’s more emblematic climbs. At the 1956 Giro, the great Fiorenzo Magni had immortalised the Santuario della Madonna di San Luca as only he would or could. Having broken his collarbone, he famously attached one end of an inner tube to his handlebars. He held the other end with his teeth and then, for two stomach-churning kilometres of uphill, pulled for all he was worth. It was quintessential Magni, and it made a legend of San Luca.

Before its exclusion from the World Cup in the first instance and the WorldTour in the second, Emilia was only ever won by the biggest and best. It was a top race for the top men, and its is testament to the fact. Motta and Bitossi in the swinging sixties, Merckx and De Vlaeminck in Belgian cycling’s age of plenty, the world champions Bugno and Fondriest as the host country reasserted itself in the early nineties. The evolving realpolitik within the UCI has marginalised the race