S9 Ep53: Kilometre 0 – The Miracle of Castel di Sangro
The Cycling Podcast
The Cycling Podcast
4.7 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 14 May 2021
⏱️ 36 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Stage 9 of the Giro will roll out of a small town in the Abruzzo mountains: the scene in 1996 of the "miracle" of Castel di Sangro winning promotion to Italy's second top division, Serie B.
When he read about this unlikely story, Joe McGinniss, a celebrated American writer, decided to go and live in Castel di Sangro to document life in Serie B.
Little could McGinniss have known the tumult, drama and tragedy he would witness. And little could Castel di Sangro have known how involved the American writer would become in the town and its football club.
McGinniss died in 2014 but in this episode we hear from his widow, Nancy Doherty.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are listening to Kilometer Zero by the cycling podcast powered by Super Sapiens, |
| 0:21.2 | Energy Management for Comitted Athletes and Cultures. |
| 0:37.6 | Stage 9 of this year's Zero Detailio starts in a small town nestled in the Brutzo Mountains. |
| 0:43.3 | The population of Castell di Sangro is 6,000. |
| 0:47.5 | It's an unremarkable place in a ruggedly beautiful setting, not somewhere that you go out of your way to visit, |
| 0:53.5 | unless the Zero is here of course. |
| 0:56.3 | But the town is a bit shabby, a bit rundown. |
| 0:59.2 | We get a sense of the place in the opening to a book The Miracle of Castell di Sangro by Joe McGinnis. |
| 1:05.3 | Here is McGinnis describing his arrival. |
| 1:07.9 | I was no tourist. |
| 1:09.2 | For better or worse I had business in the Brutzo. |
| 1:12.2 | My destination was a remote town of Castell di Sangro, which some contend means castle of blood in the local dialect. |
| 1:20.0 | The town is shielded from outsiders by what one reference book describes as an inaccessibility |
| 1:25.3 | extreme even by the standards of the Brutzo. |
| 1:28.8 | It is located almost 3,000 feet above sea level, winter lasts from October to May, and |
| 1:34.2 | in all seasons B-Steel winds gust down upon it from higher mountains above. |
| 1:39.4 | On one side Castell di Sangro is bordered by the Brutzo National Park, which still contains |
| 1:44.1 | wolves and brown bears, as well as more than 30 species of reptile. |
| 1:48.8 | On the other side lies the immense and silent valley de la Femina morta, or valley of the |
| 1:54.0 | dead woman. |
| 1:55.8 | Strangers to the region, who ask how such a name came to attach itself to such a vast |
| 1:59.8 | and empty expanse, reportedly receive only shrugs or the shaking of heads in response. |
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