Speaking of a 1998 final match, Alessandro Baricco wrote that Michael Jordan wanted to quit and “sit in an armchair and see who will ever have the courage to choose the number 23 jersey somewhere”. Here, the same thing could be said for Valentino Rossi. Any other motorcyclist should have a good self-esteem to start his career with 46. It could happen, perhaps, in some minor category, no longer in the World Championship. Because at Mugello that number that was the brand, the synonym, of the greatest champion of modern motorcycling, will be withdrawn. No one will ever be allowed to put it on the hull again. Other numbers have also been removed from circulation in recent years, but until now it had almost always happened to memory, as a tribute to guys who haven’t returned home from the tracks of the world. The 46 is the third, after Kevin Schwantz’s 34 and Loris Capirossi’s 65, to be raised as if to say that no one will be worthy of wearing it. Maybe someone, in the future, will be able to win more: but 46 will always belong to Valentino. 46, a number that he himself defined “a bit magical”, the sum obtained from the date of his farewell (11/14/21), will still represent an era in a hundred years, those all yellow years on horseback between the two centuries. And it certainly is a pity that in the past, for others, for Giacomo Agostini above all, there was not a single indicative number.
Valentino Rossi, withdrawn on 46. The other numbers withdrawn in sport
