The Lion of Tuscany

The Gino Bartali Story (The Lion of Tuscany). 2000. Video, 90 mins. From Bromley Video Entertainment, 11 The Terrace, Barnes SW13 0NP. Tel 0208-876-4671. Catalogue no BVE0180.

Bartali's career lasted from 1934 to 1953, and because he was, from the first, a champion and a star, and therefore courted by the media and loved by the tifosi, film exists of even his earliest successes. There's no need of dull interviews to pad it out, and Bromley Video are to be congratulated on bringing us this rare footage. Amateur cycling historians will have a wonderful time identifying riders and locales, picking out Campag Paris-Roubaix gears, and spotting precisely when Gino first adopted the 'Bartali' brake lever. You can't show Gino in his greatest races without showing his contemporaries too: Bobet, Coppi, Robic, and the ultimate in effortlessness, Hugo Koblet. Close-ups were rare in those days, but there are some great clips: Gino's amazing victory in the 1950 Milan–San Remo, beating none other than Rik van Steenbergen in the sprint on the Via Roma; his casual start in a Tour time-trial (120km!), tightening his straps as he rolls gently away; his little rest every six or seven pedal strokes on a climb. There's a lot of mountain riding, on appalling roads, the riders churning their limited gear ranges slowly on the climbs and often descending at no more than walking pace.

Strangely, his intense and bitter rivalry with Coppi isn't mentioned until 1952, but we do see Gino helping Coppi back to the bunch in the 1949 Tour, and handing him the famous water bottle in 1952.

Originally made in Italy, this is a slightly chauvinistic presentation of, indisputably, one of the greatest roadmen who ever lived. Bartali's withdrawal in 1950 after the trivial episode with the picnickers on the Aspin is thus presented as 'a bunch of desperadoes threatened to stone the Italians'. Koblet's crushing victory in the Giro the same year is attributed to amazing luck combined with conspiracies against a Gino 'betrayed' by his own countrymen. Every Italian team is read out in full. Nothing wrong with any of this – it all adds to the atmosphere. After all, if they expressed themselves temperately then they wouldn't be Italians. I kill you for that.

The choice of background music is bizarre (My Way, Glenn Miller, French songs) and unrelated to the year or the action, but it's not intrusive.

Now call me hypercritical if you like, but it has to be said that the commentary is pretty dire. It seems to be partly made up from scratch, and partly rendered into a kind of pidgin English version of the original. God alone knows who was responsible for 'Gino having much discomfort and befalling to many accidents'. And if you're 'gunning for someone', then you're out to get them, not to encourage them. Part of the problem is Phil Liggett, who's fine when commenting live on the Tour, but who can't read a script for toffee or pronounce a single foreign name correctly or even consistently wrong. Is 'Manyay' supposed to be Magne or Magni? The combination is, I suppose, largely responsible for the bits that are difficult to follow, and the out-and-out errors. To name but a few: Bartali was not second to Kubler in the 1951 World's – he was 9th; Ruiz did not win a time-trial stage in the 1948 Tour, or any other; Koblet did not ride the 1950 Tour; Coppi did not do the Giro-Tour double in 1951, but in 1952; and, strangest of all, we're told that in 1952 'Gino has the yellow jersey after discussions with Binda and Coppi' in a race he never led.

Irritating, but don't let it put you off – there's lots of good stuff here.

Ramin Minovi