Eros Poli

Eros Poli

Poli at the 1993 Paris–Nice
Personal information
Full name Eros Poli
Born (1963-08-06) 6 August 1963
Isola della Scala, Italy
Height 1.97 m (6 ft 5 12 in)
Team information
Current team Retired
Discipline Road
Role Rider

Eros Poli (born 6 August 1963 in Isola della Scala, Veneto) is an Italian former professional racing cyclist of the 1990s, notably employed as Mario Cipollini's lead-out man in bunch sprints.

Biography

Poli won the gold medal in the Team Time Trial at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California, together with Claudio Vandelli, Marcello Bartalini and Marco Giovannetti. He also rode at the 1988 Summer Olympics.[1]

Following Cipollini's abandonment of the 1994 Tour de France, Poli won the Montpellier to Carpentras stage (the 15th) which featured an ascent of Mont Ventoux. Poli calculated that if he broke away from the peloton by a sufficient margin on the flat run to the base of the climb of the Mont Ventoux, he would reach the summit in front in spite of his relatively poor climbing speed due to his heavy 197 cm frame. In the event, his gap of some 20 minutes was nearly closed, but he crested the climb in front and was not caught by the chasing pack on the run down to the finish of the stage in Carpentras. In that Tour, Poli won the Combativity award.

Poli rode mainly in the days before cycle helmets were compulsory in professional racing, and normally wore a casquette from which he cut out the top part, leaving just the elasticated headband and the peak to shade his eyes from the sun.

When asked by Cycle Sport magazine what he would like his epitaph to be, he said "Here lies Eros Poli, famous for being tall and coming last in the Giro d'Italia".

Major results

1984
Olympic Games, Team Time Trial
1987
World Amateur Team Time Trial Championship
1994
Tour de France:
Winner stage 15
Winner Combativity award
1998
Dun Le Palestel

References

  1. "Eros Poli Olympic Results". Sports Reference. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
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