Rino De Candido

Rino De Candido was an Italian cyclist who started his career in 1972 and two years later became the Italian student pursuit champion. He competed for Ciclisti Padovani but then moved to Despair Padova and finally to the Forestale military club, where he coached after his competitive career.

On the road he won about 20 road races but he was most successful on the track. In 1975 he was world military pursuit champion, and on 9 July 1976 in Milano’s Palazzo dello Sport with Cesare Cipollini, Sandro Callari and Orfeo Pizzoferrato, he helped set a world record of 4:24.91. He competed at the 1976 Montréal Olympics, in which Giuseppe Saronni replaced Pizzoferrato, but Italy was eliminated by the Soviet Union in the quarter-finals.

De Candido won four Italian team pursuit titles, and took part in several six-day races, winning four with Sandro Callari, including one in Milano in 1978. While De Candido was preparing for the Moskva Olympics, the Italian military blockade prevented him from competing, so he retired and started a coaching career, leading the Italian youth team from 2006-21 and then the Italian Paralympic team.