Photo Gallery: 30 years of Bettini's best images

Italian photographer and long-time Cyclingnews contributor Roberto Bettini has celebrated 30 years of life covering cycling with an exhibition showing a special selection of images from his historic archive.

Bettini has dig through his film and digital archive to find some of his best images and others that tell the story of Italian cycling from the last three decades. The images are currently on display at a special exhibition at Villa Annoni in the town of Cuggiono, close to Milan.

The photos include Bettini's very first race photo, of a very young Giuseppe Saronni winning a race in Monza in 1974 and other images from the Giro d'Italia in the 1980s, including from the legendary Passo Gavia from the 1988 Giro d'Italia won by Andy Hampsten.

Bettini, and more recently his son Luca, have covered almost every race on the international calendar, including the spring Classics, the Tour de France and every race on the Italian calendar.

Bettini captured the late Franco Ballerini's goodbye to racing with a close-up shot of Ballerini's mud-covered face. Other images capture Marco Pantani in action and in more revealing moments such as post-race massage. There are shots of Mario Cipollini's first win while riding for the Del Tongo team and his last ride at the prologue of the Giro d'Italia.

There are several historic shots of the Giro d'Italia maglia rosa worn by Francesco Moser, Evgeni Berzin, Franco Chioccioli and Denis Menchov after he crashed just in front of Bettini's motorbike during the final time trial in Rome.

Other images highlight the beauty and pain of cycling at the Strade Bianche race in Tuscany, at the Belgian Classics and landscapes from the Giro d'Italia.

The exhibition is open until December 9.

Check out our gallery of Bettini images to the right.

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