Cesare Rossi was an Italian rower with the Vittorino da Feltre rowing club who, with Umberto Bonadé, Pietro Freschi and Paolo Gennari, composed one of the best Italian crews between the two wars. The coxless four, nicknamed “I gazzosini”, perhaps from the fact that the boat was not inaugurated with the classic sparkling wine but with a more modest bottle of soda, first competed together in 1927 and was composed of three firemen and a municipal clerk.
In 1927 Rossi and his teammates won the national title, repeating that through 1931. Internationally their brightest moment came at the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics where, despite Bonadè’s requiring three surgeries for a glandular abscess, they won a bronze medal. In the following years the crew won the 1929 European title in Bydgoszcz and in 1930 in Liège, retiring from competition in 1931. Rossi also won the Gold Cup, which was awarded to those who won the Lucerne Regatta for three consecutive years.
Italy