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Multi-sport athletes and historical landmarks: Alessandro Giusti’s Hometown Tour
Alessandro Giusti is beginning to make a name for himself in motorsport as he starts his second season in FIA Formula 3, but back home in Bièvres, he is already well known.
The MP Motorsport driver takes us on a tour of his hometown, talking about his love for sports and how a member of his family played a huge part in the town’s history.
“I'm from France, a town called Bièvres. It's close to Paris, a bit in the south. So it's quite nice, it's a bit of a rural place, but it’s close to the city. So it's actually quite nice.
“When I was a kid, I was playing a lot of sports in the town. You had basketball, football, running, a lot of things. I remember going after the school there with friends and playing with them.
“I have always been playing sports with friends, which is still the case when I go in my hometown, still playing sports. So I would say the main thing is I loved sports and doing them with friends.
“There is no local team that I follow, but I did like six years of basketball before racing, and also two years of football.
“I did a lot of sports, some fighting sports, gymnastics, I did a lot of sports in my hometown. Nearly all the sports that we had in our hometown, I did them, I tried everything. Then I discovered racing.
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“But racing didn't start at home at all. I was on vacation, I asked my dad if we can go to a go-kart racetrack to see and he said yes. We went to one session and that was it.
“All in all, it's not a big hometown to be honest. The centre of the city is not that big, but that's what I like. I think everyone knows everyone, you have like four thousand people living in the city.
“So if we went to visit one day, I would say let’s go to Paris because it's not that far, and then we can play sports in my town. In Paris, we have most things there.
“I don't want to be arrogant, but actually no I am not the famous person from Bièvres. There is a French presenter, who has like 700k followers on Instagram, he's presenting a lot of things in France, so I would say I'm in the top three, maybe.
“But there is also a wall around the forest that was built by my grandfather. When he was in Italy and he moved to France to have some money, he did this. There is still the wall in the forest, he did this when he was young.”