Michele Bartoli compared him to Nibali. Starting from cyclocross, then mountain biking, track, time trial when he won a stage in the 2021 Giro he said he “had made a dream come true”. Attentive to the needs of the least, the time dedicated to poor African children and to the protection of glaciers
He was joking about that runner’s name, Gino. “I’m more Mäder than Gino”, and he winked. When he spoke of Bartali, it wasn’t so much the ancient champion that captured his interest as the story of the just man who had hidden the documents in his bicycle to save at least eight hundred Jews. “Even if he had saved just one, he would deserve our gratitude forever.”