Who is Valentino Rossi and why his story is worth telling children

When he was six years old, Valentino Rossi was already driving a go-kart in the yard of his family home in Tavullia, the small town in the Marche region where his family had moved from Urbino. He wasn't racing to win, he was racing because he couldn't sit still: every corner of that yard was a promise, and he chased it every day.

His father Graziano had raced motorcycles before him, and that passion had stayed in the air at home, like a smell of petrol nobody had ever quite switched off. But it was Valentino who chose it for himself, first on karts and then on two wheels, and in that choice lay everything he would become: the urge to go further, to try again, never to settle for the first corner taken well.

And real talent shows itself early. Rossi reached motorcycle racing while still a boy, and he won. He won in the smallest class, then in the middle one, then in the premier class, the 500cc, which would become MotoGP while he kept on racing. Nine world titles, across different categories and different years, but always with the same gesture: a young man leaning into his bike as if he were embracing the track.

The nickname "the Doctor" stuck with him throughout his career, almost as a joke, since Rossi is a common surname among doctors in Italy. But it became true once everyone understood that this young man wasn't just fast: he understood the track, he felt it, he read it in a way few others could.

He raced for many years, changing bikes and teams more than once, never losing that look of someone who was truly enjoying himself. When he retired, his number, 46, retired with him: no other rider will ever carry it again.

That boy in the yard at Tavullia had no idea where his love of speed would take him. He simply knew he loved it, and he kept chasing it, corner after corner, until he became one of the names motorcycling will not forget.

Valentino Rossi's story is told in the book dedicated to him in The Great Heroes collection, The boy who rode with the wind, for anyone who, perhaps steering a small kart around a yard, is already chasing their own corner.