Israeli Cycling Academy Team pays tribute to Giro d’Italia champion and Holocaust hero Gino Bartali
Gino Bartali used his bike to smuggle documents and helped more than 800 Jews during the Holocaust
Gino Bartali has an impressive palmarès with multiple victories at the Tour de France (1938, 1948), the Giro d’Italia (1936, 1937, 1946) and Milan-San Remo (1939, 1940, 1947, 1950). The Italian was renowned for his exploits on the bike but not just in the biggest races. In 2013 Bartali was recognized by Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, as a Righteous Among the Nations for his efforts to aid Jews during the Second World War.
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On March 20, Israel’s first pro cycling team paid tribute to Bartali’s exploits smuggling documents that helped save the lives of hundreds of Jews during the war. The Israeli Cycling Academy, founded in 2015, rode a 200-km route through the heart of Tuscany along the same roads Bartoli used during the war. Starting from Bartali’s home in Florence, riding through Tuscany and ending in the city of Assissi, the team rode the same route Bartali rode while delivering fake documents to Italian Jews. Bartali is created with helping to save the lives of 800 Jews during the Second World War.
The team composed of 14 riders of 10 different nationalities, including Canadian champion Guillaume Boivin, followed the route Bartali used to smuggle illegal documents to the Italian Resistance during the Second World War. Pretending to be training, Bartali instead was carry hidden messages and documents in the frame of his bicycle without raising suspicion because of his fame in Italy.
Boivin recalls one story about Barlali about how he distracted a German policeman at a train station in order to get people and documents on unnoticed.
Bartali is remembered for having the largest gap between victories in the Tour France, a gap of ten years separated by the world war. In December 2010, it emerged that Bartali had given shelter to a Jewish family in his cellar at great risk to his own life. During his life, Bartali kept his clandestine activities a secret and never spoke about his efforts to save those under persecution during the Holocaust. Bartali passed away in 2000.
