He discovered Tyson. Rino was 'the' boxing for everyone

This is something I must confess to my four readers, on the death of Rino Tommasi, who passed away at the age of 90 after a life generously spent telling the stories of the greats of sport, on paper and on TV.

Well, there is no scribbler who does not dream of being identified with the Champion he describes.

And no one succeeds: it wasn't Gianni Brera who invented Rivera, it wasn't Adriano De Zan who idealized Pantani and Pietro Mennea would have been Pietro Mennea even without the excited shouts of the maestro Paolo Rosi.

For the simple reason that Hector and Achilles, in the end, are so noble and great that you almost forget about Homer.

Yet, this melancholy law had one exception: Rino Tommasi!

And not for tennis, where together with Gianni Clerici and Ubaldo Scanagatta he had the merit of protecting popular passion when the absence of competitive Italians threatened to reduce the racket discipline to an elitist niche.

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