Source Coppi is a simple fountain, but a very significant place for cycling enthusiasts, for whom it is common to stop and fill the bottle, imitating the gesture made in 1956 by the great champion Fausto Coppi . The Champion on holiday at Elba used to stop and fill up with water during his training on the island fresh his bottle at the natural spring in La Ginestra, just outside the village of Rio Elba .
The stele at the Source of Coppi
In memory of the Campionissimo’s gesture in 2010, the municipality of Rio Elba placed a granite slab with the engraving “ 1960 – 2010, here at the Fonte di Coppi , right above the fountain. quenched the thirst of the fifty-year-old champion on the run “.
Other current cycling champions stopped to fill the bottle at Fonte di Coppi, repeating the gesture of Fausto Coppi, such as Paolo Bettini in 2016 and Vincenzo Nibali in 2017.
The great champion Fausto Coppi
Fausto Coppi won the Giro d’Italia five times (1940, 1947, 1949, 1952 and 1953), and twice the Tour de France (1949 and 1952), also becoming the first cyclist to conquer two competitions in the same year. Among the successes in the online races we should mention the five affirmations at the Giro di Lombardia (1946, 1947, 1948, 1949 and 1954), three victories at the Milan-Sanremo (1946, 1948 and 1949), and the successes at the Paris-Roubaix and at the Freccia Vallone in 1950. He won the World Championship in 1953, and also excelled in track cycling, winning the Pursuit World Championship in 1947 and 1949. He was the record holder of the hour (with 45.798 km) from 1942 to 1956.
Only one man is in charge, his shirt is white and blue, his name is Fausto Coppi
The legendary Victory in the 1949 Giro d’Italia stage “La Cuneo-Pinerolo” is the most beautiful stage ever. Radio commentator Mario Ferretti, with the solemnity required by the circumstance, begins to tell the story destined to remain in the legend, with the famous words: “One man is in charge, his shirt is white and blue, his name is Fausto Coppi ».
Paolo Bettini has won numerous classics, including the Liège-Bastogne-Liège (2000, 2002), the Milano-Sanremo (2003), the San Sebastian Classic (2005). He won the Zurich championship (2001, 2005) and the Giro di Lombardia (2005, 2006). In 2003 he won the Italian championship. Between 2002 and 2004 he won three world cups. In 2006 he won the road cycling event at the World Championships held in Salzburg. In the same specialty he won the gold medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Vincenzo Nibali is one of the seven cyclists capable of signing the Triple Crown, or winning all three Grand Tours for at least once: Tour de France in 2014, two Tours of Italy (2013 and 2016), Vuelta of Spain in 2010. In addition to the Milan-Sanremo in 2018 and two Tours of Lombardy (2015 and 2017).
If you cycle from Rio Elba, you cannot fail to stop and refresh yourself at the Coppi spring; a simple drinking fountain.