# Gastone Nencini

Gastone Nencini (Italian pronunciation:; 1 March 1930 – 1 February 1980) was an Italian road racing cyclist who won the 1960 Tour de France and the 1957 Giro d'Italia.
Nicknamed Il Leone del Mugello, "The Lion of Mugello" (from his birthplace Barberino di Mugello, near Florence), Nencini was a powerful all-rounder, particularly strong in the mountains.
He was an amateur painter and a chain smoker. He was a gifted descender. "The only reason to follow Nencini downhill would be if you had a death wish", said the French rider Raphaël Géminiani. It was in trying to follow Nencini down a mountain on Stage 14 of the 1960 Tour de France that Roger Rivière missed a bend, crashed over a wall and broke his spine.

## Downhill race

Nencini's downhill race with Henry Anglade has become part of the legend of cycling. Anglade was a proud rider and Nencini one of the fastest down hills. They met at a col in the Dolomites during the Giro d'Italia. The weather was bad and a snowstorm had forced 57 riders to abandon that day. Anglade said:
    I couldn't tolerate the idea that Nencini was the best descender of the peloton. I said to him, call the blackboard man, we'll do the descent together and whoever comes second pays for the aperitifs this evening. So he called the ardoisier and asked him to follow us. The road was of compressed earth. We attacked the drop flat out. I let Nencini take the lead so that I could see how he negotiated the bends before attacking him. In the end I dropped as though I was alone. At the bottom, I had taken 32 seconds out of him, written on the blackboard. I was really tickled. I had beaten Nencini. The next time I saw him was that evening in the hotel I was staying at. He had just bought me an apéritif!

## Memory

At the Futa pass, on the mountains over his native Barberino di Mugello, a monument is placed to his memory: a big bronze bas-relief portrait of him racing and the inscription saying: "A Gastone Nencini. Il comune di Barberino, gli sportivi, i compagni di tante battaglie ricordano il campione mugellano" (translated from Italian: "To Gastone Nencini. The administration of Barberino, the sportsmen, the comrades of many battles remember the Mugello-born champion").

## Major results
### 1953

    2nd Road race, UCI World Amateur Championships

### 1954

    4th GP di Prato
    5th Giro dell'Emilia

### 1955

    3rd Overall Giro d'Italia
       1st Mountains classification
       1st Stages 9 & 12
       Held after Stages 15–19
    4th Road race, UCI Road World Championships

### 1956

    1st Tre Valli Varesine
    1st Stage 22 Tour de France
    1st Stage 2b (TTT) Giro d'Italia
    3rd Giro di Campania
    7th Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria

### 1957

    1st Overall Giro d'Italia
    1st Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria
    3rd Giro di Campania
    3rd Giro del Lazio
    4th Road race, National Road Championships
    6th Overall Tour de France
       1st Mountains classification
       1st Stages 10 & 18
    6th Tour of Flanders
    9th Overall Vuelta a España

### 1958

    5th Overall Tour de France
       1st Stage 19
    5th Overall Giro d'Italia
       1st Stages 10 & 18
    5th Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria
    8th GP di Prato

### 1959

    2nd Overall Gran Premio Ciclomotoristico
       1st Stage 6
    3rd Overall Giro di Sardegna
    6th Overall Paris–Nice
    9th Giro di Toscana
    10th Overall Giro d'Italia
       1st Stage 9

### 1960

    1st Overall Tour de France
       Held after Stages 1b–3
    2nd Overall Giro d'Italia
       1st Stages 5 & 10
    2nd Giro di Campania
    2nd Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria
    3rd Milano–Torino
    5th Overall Giro di Sardegna
    5th Giro di Toscana
    8th Road race, National Road Championships
    8th Giro del Lazio
    9th GP di Prato
    10th Giro della Romagna

### 1961

    2nd Trofeo Matteotti
    3rd Overall Tre Giorni del Sud
    7th Giro dell'Emilia
    8th Tre Valli Varesine
    8th Road race, UCI Road World Championships

### 1962

    2nd Giro dell'Appennino
    5th Overall Giro di Sardegna
    8th Sassari-Cagliari

### 1963

    5th Giro di Campania
    7th GP di Prato
    10th Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria

### 1964

    2nd Züri-Metzgete
    3rd Overall Tour de Romandie
    8th Giro della Provincia di Reggio Calabria

### 1965

    7th Grand Prix de Cannes

### General classification results timeline

Grand Tour general classification results :
| Grand Tour | 1953 | 1954 | 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | 1959 | 1960 | 1961 | 1962 | 1963 | 1964 | 1965 |
| Vuelta a España | Not held | Not held | 18 | — | 9 | DNF | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Giro d'Italia | — | 16 | 3 | DNF | 1 | 5 | 10 | 2 | — | 13 | DNF | — | — |
| Tour de France | — | — | — | 22 | 6 | 5 | — | 1 | — | DNF | — | — | — |
Legend :
| — | Did not compete |
| DNF | Did not finish |