A great sportsman always at the forefront for the well-being of his hometown.
Giovanni Ettore Micheletto (1889 – 1958) was born in Sacile where he would have spent his entire life. Also called “Nanè” or “Earl of Sacile”, he began his sports activity at the age of sixteen with a cycling race in Conegliano (TV) during which he showed to have a talent that led him, three years later, to enter upon a competitive career.
His first victory took place in 1909 with the participation in the Tour of Veneto, held a few months after the first edition of the Tour of Italy, in which he participated, withdrawing from it, however, at the fourth stage. In the following two years Giovanni emerged victorious in the Tour of Lombardia, in that of the province of Mantova and of Romagna.
In 1912 he succeeded in completing all the stages and winning the Tour of Italy and it was this triumph that allowed him to leave and participate in the long-awaited Tour de France and other competitions. In 1913 he achieved two prestigious results by winning the Paris-Menin and the first stage of the Tour de France: the name of Micheletto was at this point popular both in Italy and France, but the First World War was just around the corner and with it the call to arms. At the end of the war, just 24 years old, he definitively abandoned his competitive activity to devote himself to the family business full-time. In addition to the production and trade of wines, he also started a profitable activity of liqueur production, extending the market to the entire Friuli, Veneto, Lombardia, Emilia and Romagna. During the Second World War, in 1944, together with a group of fellow citizens, he founded the National Liberation Committee, with the task of coordinating the Resistance. Among his most esteemed collaborators there was Doctor Marco Meneghini who, faithful to the Hippocratic oath, at the hospital of Sacile provided aid to all those who needed it, also reserving rooms for the hospitalization and stay of the partisans. When his clandestine activity was discovered, he was arrested by German militias, tortured and then shot. This episode alarmed Micheletto who decided to save both his family and that of Meneghini: the former in Venice, the others in the province of Padua, while he came back to Sacile in time to participate in the liberation.
Micheletto was also a “champion” in the social field. After the Second World War, he played a leading role in the local political life as president of the Hospital of Sacile to which he gave a new life between 1946 and 1958, the year when he died.
In recent years, under the boost of Antonio Lot and Civiltà Altolivenza, who have dedicated the cycle racing museum based in Portobuffolè to him, his name has returned to shine and the sports hall in Cartiera Vecchia Street, which bears his name, is evidence of this. In addition, inside the hospital of Sacile there is a plaque placed the year after his death to remember the numerous works carried out.
