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history<br />
The charisma of<br />
Primo<br />
The road to world fame<br />
The European Athletics Outdoor<br />
Premium Meeting called<br />
Meeting of Turin – Memorial<br />
Primo Nebiolo was held for<br />
the tenth time in Turin at the<br />
beginning of June 2008.<br />
The competition marked the<br />
tenth anniversary of Primo<br />
Nebiolo’s death. He was the<br />
man, whose fate it was to<br />
change the world of athletics<br />
beyond all recognition. Primo<br />
was an athlete, an organiser,<br />
a politician, a businessman,<br />
and even a journalist. He once<br />
worked on the newspaper<br />
“Popolo Nuovo” published in<br />
Piedmont.<br />
“He was an indestructible<br />
leader. Primo knew how to obtain<br />
the best from everybody;<br />
athletes, subordinates and<br />
even sponsors. He was deeply<br />
in love with sport but athletics<br />
became his first love” says, his<br />
wife, Giovanna Nebiolo, about<br />
her husband.<br />
Nebiolo was born on the<br />
14th July 1923 in Turin. In<br />
1939, at the age of 16, Primo<br />
took part in his first school<br />
competition in the 100 metres<br />
sprint and the long jump which<br />
was to become his preferred<br />
event. One year later he got<br />
his first pair of spikes which<br />
was then a piece of unprecedented<br />
luxury. The war intervened<br />
to terminate his sports<br />
career for a few years. In 1943<br />
he joined the partisans and in<br />
46 | www.athletics-magazine.com<br />
Nebiolo<br />
1944 he was arrested by the<br />
Germans but he managed to<br />
escape and carried on fighting<br />
in Monferrato with the partisans.<br />
On the 25th April 1945,<br />
the 22 year old Primo joined<br />
the leadership of the committee<br />
for the national liberation<br />
in Piedmont.<br />
Although it was quite a<br />
high position for so young a<br />
man but he did not remain in<br />
politics after the war. Primo<br />
immediately returned to athletics<br />
and carried on performing<br />
the long jump until 1950.<br />
He adored his sport though<br />
he did not become a great<br />
athlete. Nebiolo graduated<br />
as a professional lawyer and<br />
successfully involved himself<br />
in the family construction<br />
business. His company built<br />
roads and bridges in a war<br />
torn Italy. In those years, he<br />
had a very bright future and,<br />
except for his love of sports,<br />
he had the ability to have<br />
easily become a billionaire<br />
or influential politician. Primo<br />
forsook the race for big<br />
money and chose a career of<br />
a sports manager. More than<br />
money, he was attracted to<br />
being in the world’s limelight,<br />
being able to communicate<br />
as an equal with heads of<br />
state and crown personages.<br />
Nebiolo was around the same<br />
age and a close friend of another<br />
great Italian, Gianni<br />
Agnelli, who chose a different<br />
way and became the head<br />
of the Fiat Empire. Together<br />
they founded a university<br />
sports club of which Primo<br />
remained the President until<br />
he died.<br />
His career as a sports functionary<br />
began in 1948 in Turin<br />
when he headed the local<br />
student’s sports council. By<br />
1961, a 38 year old Nebiolo<br />
became the head of the International<br />
University Sports Federation<br />
after, at his initiative,<br />
a successful World Student<br />
Games, had been held in Turin<br />
in 1959. By 1969, he had<br />
also become the President of<br />
the Italian Athletics Federation,<br />
a position he held until<br />
1989. He managed to turn the<br />
World Student Games, which<br />
had always been considered a<br />
second rate competition, into<br />
an event second only to the<br />
Olympic Games. Later some<br />
impressive sports facilities<br />
and stadiums would be built<br />
or reconstructed specifically<br />
for the holding of the World<br />
Student Games.<br />
In 1972, during the Munich<br />
Olympic Games, Primo was<br />
elected a member of the IAAF<br />
Council. Just one year later, in<br />
1973, he held the next World<br />
Student Games in <strong>Moscow</strong><br />
with great success. Nebiolo’s<br />
authority was growing year<br />
on year; He noticeably stood<br />
out amongst, old school, conservative<br />
sports functionaries<br />
who had little or no initiative<br />
and continued to demonstrate<br />
his considerable abilities as<br />
an organiser. As an example,<br />
he could not understand why<br />
an athletic World Championships<br />
were not held; the main<br />
athletic events which were<br />
continental were primarily<br />
the European Championships<br />
and Pan American Games.<br />
Nebiolo did not like fuss and it<br />
seemed as though anything he<br />
did, happened spontaneously.<br />
Later people who worked with<br />
Nebiolo said that they had to<br />
forget about days off and vacations<br />
whilst working with<br />
him.<br />
The power<br />
to reform athletics<br />
“Write anything you want<br />
about me but don’t call me a<br />
son of Mussolini” said Nebiolo,<br />
ironically, when addressing<br />
the press at a World Student<br />
Games held in Sicily in 1997.<br />
Surprisingly, he accepted,<br />
without any fuss, all the media<br />
attacks which attempted to<br />
link him to the Mafiosi and reveal<br />
any financial malpractices<br />
by the king of athletics. He<br />
was accused of manipulating<br />
the results, concealing doping<br />
control results, despotism<br />
and individualism in governing<br />
the IAAF. But, although he had<br />
every opportunity to do so, he<br />
did not criticise his adversaries.<br />
He was to find something
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