DISRAELI DOCUMENTS

Gastone Nencini - 1960 Editions Rencontre card

Editions Rencontre - Gastone Nencini scan 1 main image

Gastone Nencini, Italian, 1930 - 1980

This card was issued in 1978 by Editions Rencontre as a part of their card based encyclopedia. It features Gastone Nencini, winner of the Tour de France in 1960. Nencini was a brilliant climber and even more brilliant descender.

A rough translation of the final sentence might be:

"... his perseverance was ... rewarded with two unforgettable triumphs; in the Giro 1957 where he defeated Charly Gaul of Luxemburg and Louison Bobet, and in the 1960 Tour de France which he dominated from the first stage to the last - without winning a single stage - after an accidentally truncated duel with the unlucky Roger Rivière who was his main rival until his dramatic crash."

Roger Rivière crashed while trying to stay with Gastone Nencini on the perilous descent from the Col de Perjuret. He fell 20 metres into a ravine, broke his spine and spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Rivière first claimed that his brakes were faulty, then that there was oil on his rims and finally confessed that he had taken a substantial dose of a powerful opioid pain killer on the ascent and too stoned to control his bike on the descent. So it goes...