Overview

Gino Bartali is best known as an Italian cycling legend: the man who not only won the Tour de France twice, but also holds the record for the longest time span between victories. During the ten years that separated his hard-won triumphs, his actions, both on and off the racecourse, ensured him a permanent place in Italian hearts and minds. In Road to Valor, Aili and Andres McConnon chronicle Bartali's journey, starting in impoverished rural Tuscany where a scrawny, mischievous boy painstakingly saves his money to buy a bicycle and before long, is racking up wins throughout the country. At the age of 24, he stuns the world by winning the Tour de France and becomes an international sports icon. But Mussolini's Fascists try to hijack his victory for propaganda purposes, derailing Bartali's career, and as the Nazis occupy Italy, Bartali undertakes secret and dangerous activities to help those being targeted. He shelters a family of Jews in an apartment he financed with his cycling winnings and is able to smuggle counterfeit identity documents hidden in his bicycle past Fascist and Nazi checkpoints because the soldiers recognize him as a national hero in training. After the grueling wartime years, Bartali fights to rebuild his career as Italy emerges from the rubble. In 1948, the stakes are raised when midway through the Tour de France, an assassination attempt in Rome sparks nationwide political protests and riots. Despite numerous setbacks and a legendary snowstorm in the Alps, the chain-smoking, Chianti-loving, 34-year-old underdog comes back and wins the most difficult endurance competition on earth. Bartali's inspiring performance helps unite his fractured homeland and restore pride and spirit to a country still reeling from war and despair. Set in Italy and France against the turbulent backdrop of an unforgiving sport and threatening politics, Road to Valor is the breathtaking account of one man's unsung heroism and his resilience in the face of adversity. Based on nearly ten years of research in Italy, France, and Israel, including interviews with Bartali's family, former teammates, a Holocaust survivor Bartali saved, and many others, Road to Valor is the first book ever written about Bartali in English and the only book written in any language to fully explore the scope of Bartali's wartime work. An epic tale of courage, comeback, and redemption, it is the untold story of one of the greatest athletes of the twentieth century.

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9798200079131

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Reviews

"A workmanlike biography that fills in some of the gaps of this strange, troubling time.-- ""Kirkus"" ""Impeccably researched and thrillingly told...This is truly an amazing tale of a poor Tuscan boy who pedaled his way not only to sports immortality, but into true heroism."" -- ""Globe and Mail"" ""The McConnons have told the story of his [Bartali's] great and greater victories powerfully and well."" -- ""Boston Globe"" ""This thoroughly documented biography is both inspiring and immensely enjoyable."" -- ""Publishers Weekly"" ""You do not have to follow cycling to relish Bartali's story....Like Laura Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit before it, Road to Valor is about an unlikely, headstrong champion who transcended his sport to make a deep impact on the broader world."" -- ""Sports Illustrated"""

Author Information

Aili McConnon is a Canadian journalist based in New York. She has written for BusinessWeek, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Guardian. She has appeared on ABC, MSNBC, and CNN, and has earned degrees from Princeton University, the University of Cambridge, and Columbia University. Andres McConnon graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University, where he majored in history. He previously worked as a historical researcher for several books. While researching and writing Road to Valor, he lived for a period in Paris and Florence, and on the Italian Riviera. Stephen Hoye has worked as a professional actor in London and Los Angeles for more than thirty years. Trained at Boston University and the Guildhall in London, he has acted in television series and six feature films and has appeared in London's West End. His audiobook narration has won him fifteen AudioFile Earphones Awards.

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