It is well known that during the 1950 Giro d’Italia, on the Vicenza-Bolzano stage, the great cyclist Fausto Coppi was knocked by another rider, fell and broke his pelvis, and was taken to Trento hospital (from 1 June, for four weeks). The next day the Giro riders passed right along the avenue beside the hospital, and he, the Campionissimo, was itching to be with them. The day would have passed almost unnoticed had it not been for Doctor Papa, who arrived at 1.30 pm. “He is an old country doctor,” the newspaper wrote, “from the Desenzano area” (in fact he was the doctor for Centenaro di Lonato). “He left home, and his patients for a few hours, to see Fausto Coppi. With his racing bike, short blue trousers, a thick jumper, water bottles and spare tyres, he looks like a cycling ace. He is sixty-four, with a long white beard, a slightly bent back and sparkling eyes. He arrived at Trento hospital dripping with sweat.” When he asked to be announced to Coppi, the porter hurried to telephone the champion: “Doctor Papa? Of course, send him straight up.” Doctor Papa ran up the stairs in one breath and introduced himself, saying:
“Dear Coppi, I hope you’re feeling better… The accident at Primolano has upset my plans, because I had decided to greet you as the winner in Rome, where I would have gone by bicycle… I hope you’ll be back on your feet soon…” The injured rider smiled, because the visit of that good man soothed his nerves… After half an hour the Centenaro doctor got back on his racing bike and set off home to Desenzano. Coppi knew he had a loyal friend in Doctor Papa: he had seen him several times in Milan, always there when he crossed a finishing line.
A few days later (14 June 1950) a new feat by the cycling doctor was announced: a bike ride from Desenzano to Rome in just two stages (“no easy task even for a young man”, it was remarked). “Doctor Enrico Papa, a surgeon from Desenzano, who can no longer be called young (he is 64), would have pulled it off brilliantly had a trivial mishap not forced him to stop last night in Civitavecchia, turning two stages into three. The daring Doctor Papa had completed the Desenzano-Florence leg in the planned time. A short rest, and off again through Poggibonsi, Colle Val d’Elsa, Monticiano and Roccastrada towards Rome.
On the second leg the terrible state of the road surface forced Papa to slow down, but he would still have arrived on schedule, riding the last 72 kilometres during the night between Tuesday and Wednesday. Unfortunately, a fault in his bicycle lamp, which could not be repaired or replaced straight away, forced Doctor Papa the other evening to give up riding through the night and stop in Civitavecchia, from where he set off again at dawn, still pedalling, for Rome, arriving at nine.
Apart from this hitch, the journey was excellent in every respect. Even the climbs of the Raticosa and Futa passes did not seem harder to Doctor Papa than those of the Alpine foothill valleys, and he rode up them, as he assured us,” says the reporter, “without ever getting off the saddle. The Desenzano doctor, who despite the exertions of recent days appears in perfect physical shape, will be received tomorrow in audience by Pope Pius XII” (15 June 1950).
Doctor Enrico Papa, physician and keen sporting cyclist, had become a much-loved local figure in those years. Does anyone remember him today?
I often crossed paths with Doctor Papa when I cycled to middle school in Desenzano. Leaving school at 12.30, I would climb, tired and hungry, up Via Sant’Angela Merici to reach the main road, now Viale Marconi, on my way back to Lonato… And on that stretch of road, at the same time, almost every day, the sporting doctor would overtake me. I also remember trying several times to follow him along the road between Desenzano and the Menasasso junction (now the Perla area), which he took to head for Castelvenzago and then down to Centenaro, where he had his surgery. Easy to recognise by his white beard, he wore knee socks and plus fours, and he pedalled and pedalled, so that he always left me behind…
Article by Osvaldo Pippa for GN Magazine (November 2026).
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