“The standard has risen enormously – both technically and physically – amongst both the men’s and women’s teams. And there’s been a shift in attitude too. Even now, in Italy, 99 per cent of people think rugby is exclusively a men’s sport. All we can do is explain, patiently, that women’s rugby is also a contact sport, a game of skill.” Says the centre for the national team

In Bracciano, from Friday 9th to Sunday 11th October, there is a three-day event designed for observation and study, exploration and discovery, reflection and engagement, and, of course, dining and socializing.

In the Luxembourg time trial prologue of the 1989 Tour de France, the Spaniard appeared at the start 2’42” after the time trial had begun. “My head was in the clouds,” he explained

 The dirt track, the cloud of dust, a traffic jam, a line of cars and motorbikes, the impossibility of catching up. And so, on the penultimate stage of the 1947 Tour de France, the Italian lost his chance to wear the yellow jersey in Paris

There is no historical evidence of Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi’s telephone call to the Tuscan cyclist; what is certain is that, at the 1948 Tour de France, Ginettaccio restored a sense of national pride to Italians that had been shattered by the wounds of the Second World War

On 11 July 1935, whilst descending from Lautaret, near Rioupéroux, the Spaniard Francisco Cepeda fell and hit his head. He died three days later, on 14 July, a public holiday in France; he was the first cyclist to die during a race. A forgotten story