The extraordinary story of Ottavio Bottecchia, a Venetian carter from San Martino di Colle Umberto, a war hero, a starving racer in his early thirties, an immediate champion, rich and celebrated, who died suddenly and mysteriously. 

A book that departs from the many biographies published on the Venetian cyclist that have mainly recounted the Bottecchia-man, investigating the causes of his tragic end, without putting the Bottecchia-athlete at the centre of the story. This biography has been reconstructed with wide-ranging research, introducing elements that have hitherto been ignored or neglected, such as the chronicles in Venetian dialect that Bottecchia provided in 1923 to the Guerin Sportivo or the detailed account of Bottecchia's trip to Buenos Aires in 1925, where he was invited by the Italians of the Club Atletico Huracan.