One of the greats of Italian cycle racing and pioneer of external sponsorship
Fiorenzo Magni, who has died of an aneurysm aged 91, was a pioneer of modern professional cycling and one of the sport's last links with the golden era of the post-second world war years. Known as the "Lion of Flanders" or "Colossus of Monza", he was a winner of the Giro d'Italia three times, and the "third man" in Italian bike racing in the late 1940s and early 50s alongside the two leading lights of that epoch, Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali.
Magni never quite attained the national treasure status of either, partly because lingering controversy over his wartime past meant he was an ambiguous symbol of Italy's rebirth. But he was a gritty performer with outstanding tactical awareness, a poor climber due to his burly physique, but an unmatched descender.
He was also more enterprising than most, happy to seek success outside his native land, taking the train to Flanders to compete in the one-day spring classics there. He kitted his bike out with wooden rims and foam-wrapped handlebars to cushion himself against the race route's cobblestones and was rewarded with a hat-trick of victories (1949-51) in the Tour of Flanders, one of the toughest races in the sport, at a time when few champions travelled outside their homelands. He was only the second "foreign" winner of the race and remains one of only five men to have won the event three times.
His first Giro d'Italia victory, in 1948, was controversial, coming after Coppi withdrew in protest at the way the fans were pushing Magni up the climbs. So too was his forced withdrawal from the Tour de France in 1950, when he was leading the race until the two Italian teams pulled out en masse, again in protest at the behaviour of fans, this time their assaults on Bartali. His 1951 and 1955 Giro d'Italia wins were more straightforward, but the true drama came in 1956, when he finished second in the race after breaking his collarbone midway through. Pictures show him in a time trial late in the race biting on a piece of inner-tube tied to his handlebars to help him keep in control. Close to the end of the race, he crashed again, breaking his humerus. He considered finishing the race with the two fractures his greatest win.
Magni was responsible for an important development – the inception of outside sponsorship in cycling. In 1954, close to the end of his professional career, cycle makers, who had hitherto been the principal team backers, were feeling the pinch due to the rise of the moped and the car. When the Ganna bike company was unable to give him a deal, Magni approached the Nivea skincare company, was given 20m Italian lire, and had his team. He had to fight hard to get the idea past race organisers, who were worried that team sponsorship would detract from their income, but his innovation has stood the test of time. Most professional teams now have backers from outside the sport.
Where today's cyclists are stalked by controversy due to doping, the skeleton in Magni's cupboard was of a different order. After the war, he was accused of collaboration with fascist forces for his part in a roundup of partisans at Valibona in the Apennines. The story goes that as the roundup was taking place, one of the victims – a cycling fan – raised his head from the ground to see the face of his idol looking down at him, lit up by the flames of a burning house.
Facing 30 years' imprisonment, Magni was released after his fellow cyclist Alfredo Martini testified in his favour. As was often the case in those turbulent years of mixed and divided loyalties, the picture is not as simple as it seems. Other documents indicate that Magni fought with partisans near the northern town of Monza in 1945.
Magni opened a motorcycle dealership near Monza well before the end of his racing career, combining racing and running the business, and after that a car dealership, where he could be found well into his 80s, a restless, intense man with passionate memories of the great years, working with the same energy that he had put into his racing career, and fuelled by endless cups of coffee.
He remained active in Italian cycling as a national team manager and director of the Italian professional cycling league. He also played a part in the development of the cyclists' chapel at the crest of the climb at Madonna del Ghisallo, near Lake Como.
His wife, Liliana, and two daughters survive him.
• Fiorenzo Magni, cyclist and businessman, born 7 December 1920; died 19 October 2012