In 1924, 90 riders started the men’s Giro d’Italia. After 12 gruelling stages only 33 made it back to Milan. One of them was a woman – Alfonsina Strada
Words Giles Belbin
A moment in time
In the early hours of Saturday 10th May 1924, 90 riders assembled at the Porta Ticinese in Milan for the start of the 12th Giro d’Italia. Ahead lay 300km to Genoa, the first of 12 stages that would ultimately lead back to Milan after 3,613km of racing. The race was being filmed for broadcast in cinemas and as the apprehensive riders waited for the call to start, the camera settled on one in particular.
Some 80 years later, author Paolo Facchinetti would describe the scene as that rider smoothed their short hair over their forehead.
‘In a face contorted by tension, two determined eyes stood out above all else,’ Facchinetti writes. Those eyes belonged to the rider who was about to become the first woman to ride the Giro: Alfonsina Strada, number 72.
That opening stage, taking in the 1,149m Passo Penice, was a suitable introduction to a route notable for both its severity and its length, being more than 400km longer than the 1923 edition. In his book Gli Anni Ruggenti di Alfonsina Strada, Facchinetti describes riders having to ‘face uncomfortable descents and eat the dust of difficult roads’ on the road to Genoa. Some 40 minutes would separate the top 20.
Strada arrived in Genoa nearly two and a half hours after stage winner Bartolomeo Aymo, placing her 74th of the 77 finishers. She had suffered her share of misfortune – mechanical issues forcing her to stop to carry out repairs. She was far from alone in that, but she was the only one who had to endure sarcastic calls from riders laughing goodbye as they passed her, certain it would be the last they saw of her. Little did they know. Thirteen of those laughing boys quit on the road to Genoa while Strada kept going.
The stage report in the following day’s La Gazzetta dello Sport included a description of Strada pedalling with ‘ease and cheerfulness, just like a little girl who has skipped school’.
‘This is what Alfonsina had to experience,’ Facchinetti writes, stating for the record that she had of course ‘put in an extraordinary effort, endured strains she had never imagined and arrived sweaty and dirty’.
Alfonsina and the bike
Born Alfonsina Moreni in 1891 in Castelfranco Emilia, northwest of Bologna, Strada discovered cycling early, blazing around the town on a bike her father had brough
