Coppi wasn’t the only rider suffering from bad luck. Magni explains, “During stage twelve [sometimes called stage ten because different accounts handle the two days of half-stages differently], from Grosseto to Livorno, I crashed on the descent out of Volterra and broke my left collarbone. At the hospital they said I should put on a plaster cast and quit. But I didn't want to. Since the next day was a rest day, I told the doctor to do nothing and that we should wait and see. The day after, I asked the doctor to put on an elastic bandage instead of a cast because I wanted to try to ride the following stage, Livorno to Lucca. It worked! I wasn't among the first riders but I finished.”
In fact, the next stage Magni referred to was a 45-kilometer individual time trial to Lucca. Fornara won the time trial, giving him the lead with Fantini 43 seconds behind.
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Magni, however, was still having trouble with his broken collarbone. “Just before the stage started I tried to ride my bike on a climb and I noticed I couldn't use the muscles of my left arm to pull on the handlebar very hard. So my mechanic, Faliero Masi, the best mechanic of all time, cut a piece of inner tube and suggested I pull it with my mouth. That was a great idea!”
Meanwhile misfortune stuck to Magni like velcro. Stage sixteen to Rapallo took the Giro over the Apennines where Magni crashed again, this time breaking his humerus. “I didn’t have enough strength in my left arm,” he said, “and I crashed after hitting a ditch by the road. I fell on my already broken bone and fainted from the pain. The ambulance came to bring me to the hospital. In the ambulance they gave me water and I got back on my feet. When I realized that I was being taken to the hospital I screamed and told the driver to stop. I didn't want to abandon the Giro.
“I mounted my bike again and restarted pedaling. The peloton had waited for me, so I arrived in Rapallo in a relatively good position. I had no idea of how serious my condition was, I just knew that I was in a lot of pain but I didn't want to have X-rays that evening. During the days that followed I could hold my own.”The race arrived at the Dolomites for stage nineteen, a trip from Sondrio over the Stelvio (the not-so-famous south face) to Merano. The day’s riding didn’t change a lot. Torpado rider Cleto Maule won the stage with the bashed and battered Magni somehow second. Now it was Gaul’s turn to suffer at the hands of Lady Luck, having been harassed by three punctures on a day that should have been his. Instead, he finished in the second chasing group, six minutes behind Maule.
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Fiorenzo Magni, riding with both a broken collarbone and humerus, finished third that fateful day in the Dolomites, 12 minutes 15 seconds behind Gaul. But it was enough to elevate him to second place overall.
About that day in frozen Hell, Magni said, “It snowed the whole day and it was very cold; I had not noticed how much. Along the way I saw many bikes parked next to bars and I asked what was going on. They told me that most of the peloton froze and had to quit. Then, before reaching Trent I saw the Pink Jersey quitting too! ‘What?? Am I seeing things?’ I wondered. If I were the Pink Jersey I would have continued, even if I had to walk, but I would never abandon!
“When we were in Trent my team car came up to me and said I was third. ‘Third!?!,’ I wondered again. I was third that day and became second in the GC.
“Actually, I thought about attacking Charly Gaul in the following stages and trying to win my fourth Giro. I tried attacking him a couple of times during the last two stages, but he was too strong.”
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