Allegro Grandi

Allegro Grandi had a successful amateur cycling career. He won the Italian road race title in 1926 and two years later captured the world title in Budapest, ahead of fellow Italian Michele Mara and Belgian Jean Aerts. Competing in many races against professionals in those days, he often outwitted riders from the paid ranks and won such events in 1927 as the Gran Premio Cavaciocchi, Coppa Santagostino, Giro di Romagna, Gran Premio di Treviso and the Coppa Mussolini. The following year, at the 1928 Olympics, Grandi was fourth in both the individual and team road race competition.

Grandi turned professional in 1929 and in his début season, won two important races, the Giro dell’Emilia and Coppa Bernocchi. He was also third in the Giro de Calabria and fifth in the Giro d’Italia, won by Alfredo Binda. A great début season was followed in 1930 with some equally impressive results. He finished third in that year’s Giro, won by Luigi Marchisio, but did win the longest stage of the race, the near-300 km stage from Cosenza to Salerno. Grandi won the important Torino-Bruxelles stage race but his finest performance of 1930 was in winning the first stage in the Torino-Zürich race. Almost 400 km long, the stage was held on a very cold day that included the climb up the Gotthard Pass. Dozens of riders withdrew, but Grandi made a solo attack at 90 km, and arrived in Zürich with a gap of 15 minutes ahead of the Austrian Max Bulla, and 21 minutes up on the double winner of the Tour de France, Nicolas Frantz of Luxembourg. At the end of the race, Grandi won by almost 20 minutes from Frantz.

Grandi’s latter years as a professional yielded very little success, and appearances in the Tour de France and Giro resulted in him retiring on each occasion. He moved to Venezuela, where he became a naturalised citizen, and won the Venezuelan Championship three times. After his retirement, he became a cycling instructor. He committed suicide in his bike shop at the age or 66.