Home » Mario Poltronieri, journalist among the first to talk about Motorsport

Mario Poltronieri, journalist among the first to talk about Motorsport

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Five years after the death of the famous commentator, we recall the era of racing, of F1 and motorcycles, narrated by him. They were races far from the current show business, with less means, but more simplicity and humanity: times of calm and sober comments, respectful of pilots and viewers, far from today’s shouted news

Massimo Falcioni

About five years ago, on January 18, 2017, Mario Poltronieri died at the age of 88, the commentator who at the end of the 1960s with the first Rai TV live shows of some races of the “tricolor” Mototemporada and the Monza GP had made people discover motorcycling at the great audience. Thanks to those broadcasts, even the “famous” housewife from Voghera, in front of the 16-inch screen of her black and white TV, approached motorcycle racing, with Giacomo Agostini becoming a racer since the mid-1960s. star, symbol of motorcycling of the “Days of Courage”. Different from today, that roaring motorcycling not yet show-business was closer to people who could almost touch their heroes on the track; different technical methods of filming with just one or two cameras on the circuits as well as the free usability of the service (Rai); the commentator was also different, alone, more sober in the tone of his voice, more detached from the events of the individual riders on and off the track; more technical in the comment.

commentary from other times

Poltronieri can be considered, not only in motorcycling and motorsport in general, the symbol of the journalist-commentator who is no longer there, almost “foreign” to what was happening on the track in the sense that for Mario all the riders had the same dignity , which didn’t mean they were all on the same level. The comment in a low voice did not mean disinterest, flattening the riders’ values, not taking part in the battle on the track: it was an example of the speaker’s autonomy, always out of the fray of the fans, but attentive to the technical data, with the stopwatch in hand and the time table at a glance. Also in this case, as in everything, the TV broadcasts with their techniques and their means – including commentators – were children of their time, reflecting a way of narrating the race obviously different from today, where everything is more equipped, complex and runs faster and where the audience is the yardstick of everything, at least so it seems. Poltronieri had at the base of his commentary the respect of the viewer as if it were he who listened and not vice versa. Thus the commentator offered those who followed him on TV the elements to independently evaluate, without pressure from those who have the responsibility, as well as the privilege, of having the microphone live.

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sober, never deployed

The central element of the commentator became the reasoning, even more calm in tone when the tension increased and the race turned red on the track. The apparent detachment of the commentator did not mean “absence” from the event, but the ability to empower the viewer by giving him the sense of the race even with different tones, without partisan distortions and forcing linked to the logic of cheering. This did not mean not expressing judgments on the race and on the individual riders, also because Mario was anything but a fool, having himself raced in minor races and also in cars, conquering speed records in Monza with the 600, 750 and the Abarth 1000, the legendary “torpedo” and already in 1961 he was conducting the program “Wheels and roads” on Rai, which was also useful as teaching for driving motorists and motorcyclists. A few years later, with the fans divided between the two new stars of motorcycling Agostini and Pasolini, Poltronieri tiptoed into the brawl, not afraid to say his clearly: “Mino and Renzo are two extraordinary champions who hold high the tricolor and fuel the passion for motorcycling: the MV Agusta rider is more technical, the Benelli one is more impetuous. Two different schools compared. Also because their bikes are different. Let’s let the results speak for themselves ”.

Those dramas lived live

It will be in the Rai live broadcast of 20 May 1973 when the hood of tragedy falls in Monza and a great party turns into a terrible catastrophe that Poltronieri faces his most difficult test. A few minutes before the start of the 250 World Championship race, Mario had come down from his position at the top of the central grandstand to greet with a smile all the riders on the grid and pat Pasolini and Saarinen on the back who will be there in a few minutes. involved in the terrifying fall at the Curva Grande. For the live broadcast, Rai had only one camera placed on the finish line. Poltronieri, locked in the position in the grandstand, after the start could not give any information on what was happening at the bend, limiting himself to taking note of the suspended race and telling about the cloud of smoke that had risen in the place of the accident. Nobody, not even the organizers and the police, informed the reporters about what was happening. Without certain news, Poltronieri continued his commentary with an apparently “normal” tone of voice as a respect for the tragedy just consumed, thus interpreting the extraordinary tension and the sense of general anguish, but underlining the risks of the Monza circuit due to its characteristics techniques and at the limits of safety (lack of escape spaces and guardrails) that at the time characterized all the tracks. For Mario, as a commentator and as a racing enthusiast, that was the hardest test, which will then always be repeated in Monza on 10 September 1978, with the fatal accident in F1 of Ronnie Peterson in which the racetrack was again accused. In this case, due to an error by the race management that had started too early, with some cars not yet aligned, causing a bottleneck at the first corner and the general carom that cost the 34-year-old Swedish champion his life. This time the technical situation of the Rai commentary is very different from that of 1973 and Poltronieri, with the same style, tells the facts, not neglecting his critical analysis, but without throwing more fuel on the fire.

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the armchair style

Poltronieri creates a new way of narrating Motorsport, compared to that already used in football, favoring detached analysis over emotional involvement: he does not raise his voice because he lets the scream of the engines emerge, he leads the viewer to follow him for the quality of his non-shouted commentary, his calm voice and his subtle irony which, however, left its mark, even afterwards, in the depths, stimulating everyone’s reflection. In short, there was the gentle touch of the elegant competence of those who did not have the urge to please everyone, to search everywhere and in any case for listening records.

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