TALKING ITALIAN
NED’S HEAD WAS IN BLIGHTY IN MAY, BUT HIS HEART WAS IN ITALY...
I’ve been in the UK for the duration of the Giro d’Italia, presenting the Tour Series for ITV. This has taken me on a journey that was nearly as long as a Grand Tour in itself, as the city centre criterium series spread out across the land, taking in a diverse array of GPS locations ranging from Aberdeen to Salisbury, Durham to Birkenhead. The miles ticked by as routinely and unendingly as a long flat sprinter’s stage (and the Giro had plenty of them!).
Of course, I was keeping my eye on the race in Italy, even though I was primarily focusing on matters closer to hand. From time to time, I’d stop doing what I was engaged in, whip out my phone, pray for decent 4G and catch the closing words from my colleagues at Eurosport calling home the winners in the lap of Italy. Who says men can’t multitask?
I wasn’t alone, either. Even though the race took a long time to really get going, it’s still a Grand Tour, and you still feel you have to keep abreast of its comings and goings. That’s why I found myself, on the Tour Series’ final round, with one leg on the Madison Genesis team bus and the other leg on the tarmac of the Brooklands circuit, straining to catch a proper look at the sight of Richard Carapaz and Primoz Roglic (or “Rodglick” as the estimable Sean Kelly unflinchingly insisted throughout), Vincenzo Nibali and Simon Yates. The riders from the British domestic team, readying themselves for racing as they watched, were as interested as any other fan in the race.
There’s something about the Giro, isn’t there? It’s undeniably, distinctively Italian, which sounds obvious enough, until you consider just how international and Anglophone the World Tour peloton now is.
Not Mauro Vegni’s race. The Giro he presides over manages to magnify the Italian-ness and diminish the rest of the world; willing guests at an annual cultural feast. The race metaphorically drizzles Balsamic sauce over the weeks, scoops up a different gelato flavour every day and ends with the swirl of a fine Barolo in the high, thin air of the Italian Alps, whose altitude intoxifies just by looking at them. No one could ever mistake the Giro for any other race, as it squiggles its way variously up and down the peninsular’s mountainous spine. So, I’ve been learning Italian. I decided after returning from an early spring commentating in Italy at such wonderful races as the Giro di Sicilia, Tirreno-Adriatico and Milan-Sanremo, that I could no longer speak Italian to Italians like an inarticulate baby ordering a complicated electronic component from a specialist shop. I realised my string of made-up words (mostly French, with an ‘o’ or an ‘a’ wishfully stuck on the end) and randomised vocabulary based largely on hope no longer cuts the mustard.
I won’t lie. It’s been difficult. This is the first time in getting on for 30 years that I have ever had to sit down and try to learn anything. It’s not easy. It involves endless repetition and considerable investment of time. I am still flabbergasted that it’s not simply a matter of looking at something once and then using it with perfect recall from that moment on. My teacher, Claudia, who is a smart multi-lingual student from Rome, looks at me with pity as I fumble around my sentences using a random ending generator in place of knowledge.
Anyway, I was reminded of a story involving a broadcast colleague of mine a few years ago, who found himself simultaneously translating for a UK TV audience an Italian language interview with an Italian stage winner at the Giro, despite speaking no actual Italian himself. The rider in question kept talking about the day’s breakaway (‘fuga’ in Italian), and his role within the pack of riders in the break (‘fugitivi’). Not one to be put off by uncertainty, he ploughed ahead with his own interpretation of the interview.
“We felt like fugitives out there!”, he declared, lovingly rendering a much more poetic spin to the routine post-race interview than had perhaps been intended.
But in a way, I admire his chutzpah. And I like the fact that he actually made an already very Italian moment even more Italian by applying absurd hyperbole to the situation, out-Italian-ing the Italians. Lost in translation? Not a bit of it.
The Giro squiggles its way up and down the peninsular’s mountainous spine