Ottavio bottecchia biography of martin

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Seeing the chance of not only winning the Tour de France, but also having an Italian rider to help further stimulate sales in Italy, based on Pélissier’s recommendation the team quickly signed Bottecchia.

Bottecchia’s family continued to struggle with poverty, with his youngest daughter dying in 1921 at the young age of seven.

An anguished Bottecchia later returned to Italy with his family, where he later took up competitive cycling, winning the Giro del Piave, the Coppa della Vittoria and the Duca D’Aosta in 1920, followed by victories in the Coppe Gallo an Osimo, the Circuito del Piave and the Giro del Friuli the following season.

Legend has it, that he wore his yellow jersey all the way to Milan on the train, while traveling third class in order to save money.

Bottecchia won the Tour de France again next year, with the help of Lucien Buysse, who served as the first domestique in Tour history. He abandoned the Tour of 1926 on a stage which those who were there described as apocalytpic because of the cold and the violence of the wind.

The accident theory, favoured by justice, on the accounts of witnesses and a medical examination which also referred to several fractures, was based on an assumption of an illness, sunstroke and a fall.

Bottecchia turned professional the following year, wherein he received a new bike to race on by Teodoro Carnielli, president of the Italian cycling association, the Associazione Sportiva di Vittorio Veneto.

Also his body was found in Peonis, not Pordenone. The writer Bernard Chambaz said:

The unpleasant hand of destiny fell on his shoulders. He was found dead by the roadside; the reason remains a mystery.

Origins

Bottecchia was born to a poor family of nine children.

Zille also opted out of training, leaving Bottecchia to set out alone.

There have been numerous theories as to the death of Bottecchia, with Chambaz writing for the French newspaper, L’Humanité, “accident or assassination?

The priest who gave him the last rites is said to have attributed the death to Fascists unhappy about Bottecchia's more liberal leanings. He was found dying near a road with his face mangled; there was talk of an accident in which he had fallen off his bicycle, which was found several meters away from him; It was also said that a farmer, owner of a field, mistook him for a fruit thief and hit him on the head, leaving him dying; The version also spread that a jealous husband murdered him for allegedly getting close to his wife, and, finally, of an attack at the hands of fascist militias.

The theory suited everybody: the Mussolini régime, the presumed killer and even - it's sad to say - the family, now sure of a large insurance payout.^[2]

The only events which appear certain are that that morning, Bottecchia rose at dawn and asked for a hot bath to be ready for him when he returned after three hours.

From there, he was taken by cart to a hospital in Gemona, where he died twelve days later without ever having regained consciousness.

According to reports, Bottecchia had risen early on the day of his death, later riding to meet his friend, Alfonso Piccini, to train together.

Bottecchia was born in a small town in the Italian region of Friuli at the end of the 19th century. The accident theory, favored by justice, on the accounts of witnesses and a medical examination which also referred to several fractures, was based on an assumption of an illness, sunstroke and a fall. He’d pushed through the vines and damaged them.

He led the Tour from Cherbourg after the second stage and wore the yellow leader’s jersey as far as Nice. Bottecchia's tyres had been punctured before the start of some stages and fascist opponents could have been behind it.

A further theory is that Bottecchia had made uncomplimentary remarks about an earlier Italian champion, Costante Girardengo, and that he worried fans would take revenge.

Bottecchia wore the yellow jersey again after Nice and all the way to the finish.

He had also been found in the morning, before the day became hot. His skull was broken, as well as his collarbone, along with a number of other serous fractures, while his undamaged bike lay some distance away. Dark thoughts and a presentiment of the future haunted him. Automoto saw the chance not only of winning the Tour de France but of having a further Italian rider to stimulate foreign sales.

He no longer had the heart to train.