At 86, Cosimo Lai is not afraid of the heat. Every day he challenges the very high temperatures of this torrid summer, leaves the house with his cane and takes a few kilometers on foot to reach the newsstand in the square in Sinnai . Several kilometers a day before returning home with the copy of the Unione Sarda and the Gazzetta dello sport . “They have always been my favorite newspapers: I leave the house, I rarely give up and after stopping at the newsagent I meet my friends, stop for a moment in the square and then back home for daily readings. I have not given up on the newspaper even in the most dramatic moments of Covid ".
White beard and very long, Cosimo Lai was a cycling champion as a young man. He alternated his activity as a shepherd. Between the fifties and sixties he won a lot, earning great titles also on the Informatore del Monday, the sports weekly of "L'Unione Sarda".
All legs, extraordinary physical strength, in 1961 he became Sardinian road cycling champion tearing up his opponents, after a trip from Sinnai by bike to reach the starting point in Ozieri. Those were the times of great islanders such as Cherchi, Fontana, Marica, Garau, Murgia, Aru, Ulleri, Marini, Desogus, Manca. And of very professional champions such as Gastone Nencini, Ercole Baldini, Charly Gaul, Aldo Moser among the professionals.
Then much more glory on the track and again on the road .
"I have taken great satisfaction with cycling, as an improviser poet, as a writer and also as an actor", the conclusion.