Ottavio Bottecchia

Ottavio Bottecchia, 1920s

Ottavio Bottecchia (1 August 1894 - 14 June 1927) was an Italian cyclist and the first Italian champion of the Tour de France.

Bottecchia was born to a family of nine children in San Martino di Colle Umberto in Italy and became a bricklayer as a young man. He married and had three children. During the First World War he served as a sharpshooter in the Italian Army. Near the end of the war he was taken as a but he managed to escape.

After the war he became a professional cyclist. His first professional racing success came in 1923, when he placed fifth in the Giro d'Italia. That same year, he won a stage in the Tour de France and placed second in the general rankings. A year later, he signed for the French team Automoto, where he earned a higher salary than anything available to him in Italy at the time. In 1924 he was one of the favorites for the Tour de France, having established a reputation as a climber. He won the first stage and kept the yellow jersey for the remainder of the race, becoming the first Italian to win the Tour. He won the Tour again in 1925 with the help of Lucien Buysse, who served as the first domestique in Tour history. In the 1926 Tour, Bottecchia abandoned on a climb during a thunderstorm and Buysse emerged the winner.

Although he was one of the most successful of the Italian cyclists in the 1920s, he never became as popular in Italy as he might have been. His greatest successes were in France, not in Italy, and he was soon overshadowed by other Italian campionissimi like Alfredo Binda and Costante Girardengo.

Bottecchia is now known as much for his mysterious death as for his achievements during life. In June 1927 he was found by the side of a road, covered with bruises and with a serious skull fracture. His bicycle was undamaged, propped against a nearby tree. He was brought to a hospital but died soon afterwards. An official inquiry concluded accidental death but many suspected that he had run afoul of the powerful and growing fascist movement in Italy at the time. Two people confessed to killing himbut neither account could be corroborated. In 1973 the Italian pastor who had given Bottecchia his last rites, on his own deathbed, attributed Bottecchia's death to Fascists jealous of his success.