Sergio earlier today wrote about his old stroy relating to Rik van Looy. UNfortunately, not having the time to translate it, he asked for some help. Here is the translation:
It was 1960, or some time about then, the Giro was arriving in Castelfidardo, the home of the accordion. The Paolo Soprani orchestra, of which I was a member, was invited to play on the stage. The gig would have been for no pay, but television would have been present. All of us boys were happy, as was obviously Soprani and we would have been able to watch the stage from the stage.
We played before the arrival of the stage and when they began the TV coverage, we were made to stop. They couldn't possibly take pictures of us! I descended from the stage to say hi to a few friends and was not able to see anything of the whole race. The riders arrived like furies.
The winner of the stage was Rik van Looy. He went up onto the stage , where among others, was the General Manager of the Soprani band, Mr. Bersaglia. Mr Bersaglia was to present an accordion to the winner as a bit of advertising. The accordion was however nothing special, just a little child's accordion.
At the time, I was in fact under the stage with Giorgio Bersaglia, a school classmate and son of the band Manager as well as other bandmates.
'Bloody Hell!' I said, 'The accordion that your father is giving looks just like mine, with a double box. What a great gift!'
And it was in fact mine, given in error.
Can you imagine a young boy trying to reach Rik van Looy in the middle of all this confusion? I was able to reach him. A few hours later, together with my Maestro, I went to the Albergo Fortuna in Ancona, in front of the train station to request the return of my instrument, in exchange for the other one.
It certainly wasn't easy speaking to the Directeur Sportif Driessen to convince him of the error. In the end, he let me go up to van Looy's room. Van Looy was there on the bed fiddling around with my accordion, not really knowing what to do with it, however apparently still taken by the instrument. He was far less enamoured by the other one. He was not stupid!
I returned downstairs all happy and was obliged by Driessen to play a song in the hotel hall. Perhaps to ensure that the whole story was not simply a plot.
Never has the Turkish march by Mozart ever been played so quickly, with him saying all along: 'Doucement, Doucement!' (Slowly, slowly!)
Why would I tell this? Because likely today, you would not expect to see a rider relaxing in such a childlike way.
Sergio
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