Farewell to Livio Berruti. After a period of illness, the Olympic 200 meters champion in Rome 1960 died at the age of 87 in a clinic in Turin. ANSA learns this from sources close to the family. Berruti leaves behind his wife Silvia. The funeral is planned to be private. After his athletic career, he worked in the field of communication. In 2006, he was one of the eight Italians who carried the Olympic flag at the closing ceremony of the Winter Games in Turin, his city.
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Born in Turin on May 19, 1939, Berruti discovered athletics in 1955 at the Cavour high school, becoming the fastest in the institute. He hoped – as recalled by Fidal in his biography – to be able to practice his beloved tennis by attending the Lancia sports center, but the results in speed races pushed him to insist on athletics. Only a few years later he became an Olympic champion, the first European sprinter to triumph in this race. It all happened on September 3, 1960, at the Olympic Stadium in Rome: in just two hours he ran the semifinal in 20.5, equaling the world record, then winning the final in the same time ahead of the American Lester Carney (20.6) and the French Senegalese Abdou Seye (20.7). With the victory in Rome, he received 800,000 lire from the CONI for the gold medal, 400,000 lire for the world record, and a ‘500’ as a gift from Fiat. At the Tokyo Olympic Games, four years later, he ran the same distance in the uncomfortable first lane, finishing fifth and still first among Europeans (20.83), in the race won by the American Henry Carr in 20.36. The name of Livio Berruti is on one of the plaques of the Walk of Fame of Italian sport in Rome, identified by CONI to celebrate the legends who made the history of Italian sport.
