Mario Vallotto

Mario Vallotto was an Italian cyclist. He débuted on the road with the Coin Mestre team, and demonstrated his great talent as a rouleur immediately. Afterwards, he moved to Unione Ciclistica Vittorio Veneto and then to Ciclisti Padovani, competing on both road and track.

With Ciclisti Padovani Vallotto won the Italian team pursuit titles from 1958-60 and, in 1959, was runner-up at the Amsterdam Track World Championship in the individual pursuit behind the German marvel Rudi Altig. He was also successful on the road, winning the Grand Prix Industria e Commercio in 1958, but he was above all a specialist in the individual and team pursuit. At the 1959 Beirut Mediterranean Games he won two gold medals: in the individual pursuit he defeated teammate Franco Testa and French Olympian Marcel Delattre (who became world champion the following year), while in the team he earned victory alongside Testa, Luigi Arienti and the non-Olympian Carlo Simonigh, beating France in the final. At the 1960 Roma Olympics he was 26-years-old and the leader of the Italian team, which, after a very poor start, ended up winning the gold medal and twice set the Olympic record in the qualification rounds.

The following year Vallotto turned professional with the team VOV, where he joined famous cyclists such as Vittorio Adorni, Pasquale Fornara, Valentino Gasparella, and Federico Bahamontes. In 1962 he was with the great team Ignis alongside the Olympic gold medalists Ercole Baldini, Mino De Rossi and Antonio Domenicali; in both cases, however, he did not achieve any significant results.