The Story of the Giro d'Italia: A Year-by-Year History of the Tour of Italy, Volume 2: 1971-2011

by McGann, Carol

  Photo of Fignon and Bugno

  Gianni Bugno then took off and no one saw him until the end of the stage, but Fignon was third at the finish in Prato for another 3-second bonus. Going into the final stage, a 53.8-kilometer time trial finishing in Florence, Fignon had a 1 minute 31 second lead over Giupponi, who was waging a never-say-die battle down to the last stage. The last two stages were so hard, fifteen riders who thought they were going to make it to the end either retired or were eliminated.

  Lech Piasecki won the time trial, but second place was a shock. It was Greg LeMond, more than a minute ahead of third-place Giupponi. He had been suffering like a dog almost the entire Giro, sometimes barely making it to the stage finish before the time cut-offs. Desperate and miserable, he called his wife, Kathy, in Belgium and worried that he might not be able to continue. She told him to tough it out and then flew down to Italy to give him support. LeMond continued to flog himself and towards the end he finally began to find some of his old form.

  And Fignon? He came in fifth, 16 seconds slower than Giupponi, good enough to clinch the Giro. He was only the third Frenchman to win the Giro, after Anquetil and Hinault, and as of this writing no Frenchman has won it since.

  Merckx thought that without his big time loss in the stage three team time trial, Hampsten could have been the 1989 winner. He certainly would have been in the fight.

  Final 1989 Giro d’Italia General Classification: 1. Laurent Fignon (Super U): 93 hours 30 minutes 16 seconds

  2. Flavio Giupponi (Malvor-Sidi) @ 1 minute 15 seconds

  3. Andy Hampsten (7-Eleven) @ 2 minutes 46 seconds

  4. Erik Breukink (Panasonic) @ 5 minutes 2 seconds

  5. Franco Chioccioli (Del Tongo) @ 5 minutes 43 seconds

  Climbers’ Competition: 1. Luis Herrera (Café de Colombia): 70 points

  2. Stefano Giuliani (Jolly Componibili): 38

  3. Jure Pavlič (Carrera): 34

  Points Competition: 1. Giovanni Fidanza (Chateau d’Ax-Salotti): 172 points

  2. Laurent Fignon (Système U): 139

  3. Erik Breukink (Panasonic): 128

  Both LeMond and Fignon were back. Neither rider ever again found the extraordinary magic of the mid 1980s, but they were both so fabulously talented that even a diminished Fignon and LeMond were still better riders than anyone else.

  After the Giro, while Fignon wanted to do nothing more than celebrate his Grand Tour comeback, a grim-faced Guimard insisted upon being the skunk at the picnic. Guimard was already planning their July Tour de France campaign and warned, “LeMond will be up there at the Tour.”

  Fignon was dumbfounded that LeMond, who had been nowhere for three weeks of the Giro, had ended up taking second in the final time trial. About Guimard’s prophetic hand-wringing, Fignon wrote, “We all know what happened in July, 1989.” Not only did LeMond win the Tour that July, he became World Champion, outsprinting one of those Alfa Lum Russians, Dimitri Konyshev.

  1990. The 1990 edition started deep in the south, in Bari, and made a giant Z on the Italian map as it headed north. It worked its way to the western coast of Tuscany and then to Cuneo in Piedmont; then a nearly due eastward march all the way to Klagenfurt in Austria before the final week in the Dolomites and the Alps. It was a 20-stage race totaling 3,450 kilometers, just 32 kilometers longer than in 1989. Who were the favorites? 1989 Tour winner and reigning World Road Champion LeMond came with his powerful new “Z” team. So far that spring, he hadn’t notched any notable placings and had come to the Giro to train for the Tour.

  And there was the winner of 1989 Dauphiné Libéré, Charly Mottet, who had just won the Tour of Romandie and was turning into one of France’s finest riders.

  Fignon had come into the start of the 1990 season as the number one world-ranked cyclist, but by the time the Giro rolled around, he was again struggling. After a lackluster Classics season he arrived at the Giro feeling his form was questionable.

  Marco Giovannetti had just finished winning the Vuelta, but he would surely be too tired to contest the Giro, especially against Italy’s newest strongman, Gianni Bugno.

  Bugno had entered his time of grace. In the spring of 1990 he had already won Milan–San Remo and the Giro del Trentino. The first race required speed and power, the second, raced in the Dolomites, was a test of climbing ability. Bugno was a complete rider and Fignon tipped him as the favorite.

  Bugno blistered the 13-kilometer prologue at a scorching 50.92 kilometers per hour. He had laid down the law and taken the maglia rosa at the first opportunity. It was not as if there were no competitors. Thierry Marie, a specialist who had a habit of winning Tour de France prologues, finished 3 seconds slower.

  But the climbing? Could he climb with the Grand Tour men whose form was carefully cultivated to peak in May? Trying to take some of the pressure off, Bugno said he would just try to take each stage as it came, but he said he was reasonably sure his adventure in pink would soon be over.

  He was saying one thing but planning another. Two days later Bugno laid to rest any questions about his abilities in the mountains when the Giro ascended Mount Vesuvius. Waiting until the road got steep, Bugno took off alone to chase down the day’s earlier escapees, a group that included climber Eduardo Chozas. No one reacted to Bugno’s bold move, and in a flash he was up the road with a good gap. He caught all but Chozas, but Chozas’ 26-second lead was small enough to keep Bugno in pink. It was a surprising expenditure of energy so early in a Grand Tour. He was riding as if he knew how much better he was than the others.

  Stage five, in Abruzzo, took the riders through a badly lit tunnel where several riders, including Fignon, crashed. Bugno and his team emerged from the tunnel unhurt and four minutes ahead of Fignon. Doing the honorable thing, Bugno’s Chateaux d’Ax squad slowed things down until Fignon, suffering from a painful dislocated hip, could catch up.

  Gert-Jan Theunisse had tested positive for high levels of testosterone in the Flèche Wallonne (this was not his first positive) and during the Giro, the reconfirmation of that test became known. At the start of stage six, the riders staged a strike, saying they would not ride if Theunisse were part of the peloton. The seemingly friendless Theunisse promised to ride quietly. And so he did, eventually finishing the Giro fifteenth, almost a half-hour down on the winner.

  The Giro started in earnest with stage six, a northwest run from Fabriano in Umbria up to Vallombrosa, just east of Florence. The country is hilly and the final climb up to Vallombrosa is a twenty-kilometer ascent with sustained sections of twelve percent gradient.

  Photo of Bugno

  Bugno kept the pressure on almost from the gun, shattering the peloton, and of the Giro contenders, only Mottet, Lejarreta, Chioccioli and Piotr Ugrumov could stay with him. After doing a huge amount of work, incredibly, Bugno out-sprinted Ugrumov for the stage win. Fignon lost 78 seconds while LeMond dropped a quarter of an hour.

  The General Classification now stood thus: 1. Gianni Bugno

  2. Daniel Steiger @ 1 minute 12 seconds

  3. Joachim Halupczok @ 1 minute 24 seconds

  4. Marino Lejarreta @ 1 minute 25 seconds

  5. Federico Echave @ 1 minute 33 seconds

  6. Piotr Ugrumov @ 1 minute 40 seconds

  The next day in the Apennines made history. When Vladimir Poulnikov crossed the finish line first at the end of stage eight, he became the first Russian (OK, until 1991, Soviet Union) rider to win a Giro stage. His compatriot Dimitri Konyshev was second. Times were changing. The day’s rainy weather proved too much for Fignon’s hip and the Frenchman abandoned. LeMond, still not finding his form, lost a half-hour.

  An estimated quarter-million fans lined the Piedmont road between Castello di Grinzane and Cuneo to watch Italy’s hero demolish his opposition in the stage nine individual time trial. Bugno didn’t win, headwinds came up late in the day when the top riders rode
, but his second place to Luca Gelfi after 68 kilometers of solo riding was enough to further distance himself from the rest of the field and to send the tifosi into ecstasies of joy.

  After a couple of days of climbing and a long time trial, Bugno didn’t seem to have any weaknesses: 1. Gianni Bugno

  2. Marco Giovannetti @ 4 minutes 8 seconds

  3. Charly Mottet @ 4 minutes 9 seconds

  4. Federico Echave @ 4 minutes 41 seconds

  5. Joachim Halupczok @ 5 minutes 6 seconds

  As the peloton made its way to its stage fifteen appointment with the Dolomites, Greg LeMond started showing signs that things weren’t hopeless. He took a shot at an intermediate sprint, and then in stage fourteen, went off on a break that at one point gained twelve minutes. He was caught, but the legs were coming back. Too late for the Giro, but July and the Tour weren’t far off.

  The first day in the Dolomites had six major climbs: the Valparola, Gardena, Sella, Pordoi, Marmolada and then another trip up Pordoi. Charly Mottet provided all of the energy of the day, attacking on the Marmolada, unhappily taking along a watchful Bugno who easily matched the Frenchman’s efforts. Then Bugno, in another display of power and confidence, insisted upon leading the pair to the crest of the pass. The two worked together on the Pordoi before Bugno gifted the Frenchman the stage win.

  At this point Bugno seemed invulnerable. Halupczok, 1989’s World Amateur Champion, had probably done more than his 22-year-old body could take, and abandoned his miracle Giro ride with an inflamed knee. That autumn heart problems forced the young Pole to retire from cycling. He died of a heart attack in 1994, which some blamed on his use of the new drug EPO (more about this later). This allegation has no proof, but in the early 1990s seemingly healthy young endurance athletes started dying in their sleep. After a bad crash, Urs Zimmermann also had to retire.

  The second mountain stage, which included the Mortirolo ascent for the first time, changed nothing: the top riders finished together. Bugno was effortlessly leading the Giro with Mottet 4 minutes 13 seconds behind.

  That left only the final 39-kilometer time trial, with its uphill finish on Sacro Monte in Varese. It was a wet, windy day. Bugno, who had started the day with both front and rear disc wheels, soon regretted the choice. When he flatted, a bike change let him rectify the equipment error. Bugno won the stage with Lejarreta second, 1 minute 20 seconds back. LeMond’s ever improving form showed with his twelfth place, but nothing like his second place in the final time trial the year before.

  As Mario Cipollini won the final stage, Bugno joined the elite club of riders who had won the Pink Jersey on the first stage and worn it all the way to the end. Only Costante Girardengo (1919), Alfredo Binda (1927), and Eddy Merckx (1973) had been able to wear the jersey from “sunrise to sunset”. Critics said that Bugno had prevailed against a weak field with only Mottet able to provide real competition. The field may not have been as strong as in previous or future editions, but nevertheless, Bugno had simply crushed 198 of his fellow professional bicycle racers.

  One of those greats called it quits. Giuseppe Saronni retired after his 45th place. He had a long list of impressive victories that included two Giri (1979, 1983) and a Rainbow Jersey (1982). He went on to be a successful team director, managing the Italian Lampre squad.

  LeMond went from 105th in the Giro to 1990 Tour de France champion.

  One of runner-up Mottet’s soigneurs, Willy Voet, wrote that Mottet insisted on riding without dope. Given the startling frankness of Voet’s memoir, one has to assume Voet’s assertion was true. Voet wrote that during the rare times Mottet took corticosteroids for therapeutic purposes (while his competitors were using them to improve their performances) he “would breathe fire”, showing that Mottet’s scruples forced him to leave a lot on the table. Voet said that because of the rampant doping around him, Charly Mottet “simply did not have the career that he merited.”

  Final 1990 Giro d’Italia General Classification: 1. Gianni Bugno (Chateau d’Ax-Salotti): 91 hours 51 minutes 8 seconds

  2. Charly Mottet (RMO) @ 6 minutes 33 seconds

  3. Marco Giovannetti (SEUR) @ 9 minute 1 second

  4. Vladimir Poulnikov (Alfa Lum) @ 12 minutes 19 seconds

  5. Federico Echave (Clas) @ 12 minutes 25 seconds

  Climbers’ Competition: 1. Claudio Chiappucci (Carrera): 74 points

  2. Maurizio Vandelli (Gis-Benotto): 56

  3. Gianni Bugno (Chateau d’Ax-Salotti): 48

  Points Competition: 1. Gianni Bugno (Chateau d’Ax-Salotti): 195 points

  2. Phil Anderson (TVM): 176

  3. Mario Cipollini (Del Tongo): 176

  1991. With no podium placings so far in 1991, LeMond was again riding the Giro in training for the Tour and didn’t look to be a factor. The man who had given LeMond fits in the 1990 Tour after gaining over ten minutes in a fuga di bidone (a successful break of innocent-looking riders that gains a large time gap) finally finishing second, did have a good spring. Claudio Chiappucci won Milan–San Remo and the Tour of the Basque Country. A poor time trialist, Chiappucci was a fearless aggressor who would attack when his opponents least expected it. Franco Chioccioli had been knocking around for nearly a decade (he was Best Young Rider in the 1983 Giro) and perhaps if he had been given warm clothing at the top of the Gavia Pass, he might have won the 1988 Giro. Nicknamed “Coppino” (“Little Coppi”), as was Italo Zilioli, for his slender, lanky build and resemblance to the campionissimo, Chioccioli still ached to remedy his 1988 defeat. There was nothing in his 1991 win column so far.

  The Giro started on Sardinia and after three stages on the island, Franco Chioccioli was the maglia rosa with Bugno and Chiappucci trailing at 5 and 11 seconds respectively. Since Chioccioli was one of those riders who always had at least one bad stage during a Giro, he wasn’t expected to take the Pink Jersey all the way to Milan.

  In fact he didn’t take it to the finish line in Sorrento after the Giro transferred to the mainland. Frenchman Eric Boyer on LeMond’s “Z” squad romped away from the field and there seemed to be no enthusiasm to catch him. Chioccioli, with the responsibility of the Pink Jersey, buckled down and did most of the work (according to his own recounting of the stage), keeping Boyer from running away with the race. Boyer got to take the maglia rosa after finishing a half-minute in front of the pack. Chioccioli was sitting in second place at 3 seconds but promised that the next day’s race through Abruzzo, with three rated climbs, would see a different Franco Chioccioli.

  As the word was spoken, the deed was done. Chioccioli and Marino Lejarreta broke away on the final climb of the day, Monte Godi, and maintained a 50-second gap over the Chiappucci and Boyer-led chasers all the way to the town of Scanno. Chioccioli had taken back the lead with Lejarreta (winner of the 1982 Vuelta and fifth in the 1990 Tour) second at 8 seconds. Boyer, Chiappucci and Bugno were trailing roughly a minute back.

  The next day, with another three rated climbs, was ridden without any particular aggression until the last hill, bad weather and the difficult descents on wet roads having kept the riders plenty busy. Things broke up on the last ascent, but the climb to Castelfranco wasn’t enough to pry apart Bugno, Chioccioli, Lejarreta and Chiappucci. Fignon and Boyer each lost a minute and LeMond struggled in more than two and a half minutes after stage winner Vladimir Poulnikov.

  Before the stage ten 43-kilometer individual time trial in Langhirano, near Parma, the General Classification stood thus:

  1. Franco Chioccioli

  2. Marino Lejarreta @ 8 seconds

  3. Claudio Chiappucci @ 57 seconds

  4. Vladimir Poulnikov @ 59 seconds

  5. Gianni Bugno @ 1 minute 3 seconds

  In those 43 kilometers Bugno grabbed the Giro by the scruff of the neck and gave it a good shake. He won the stage, beating Chiappucci and Chioccioli by about a minute. The new General Classif
ication:

  1. Franco Chioccioli

  2. Gianni Bugno @ 1 second

  3. Marino Lejarreta @ 26 seconds

  4. Claudio Chiappucci @ 56 seconds

  5. Massimiliano Lelli @ 1 minute 18 seconds

  People who knew about these things said that Bugno appeared to have the Giro nailed. From here it was just a matter of turning the cranks and waiting for the race’s arrival in Milan. Bugno was bubbling with optimism, and referring to Chioccioli’s miniscule lead he said, “This second is not a problem.”

  LeMond started to show a little sparkle when he and Maximilian Sciandri squeezed out a five-second gap as the race roared into the Riviera town of Savona. One couldn’t help feeling he might be repeating 1989 and 1990, dragging himself around the Giro and finding form just in time to win the Tour.

  Chioccioli definitely wasn’t dragging around. The twelfth stage had a hilltop finish on Monte Viso, an Alpine ascent near the French border and the source of the Po, Italy’s longest river. Lelli was the first to make it through the heavy fog to the finish with Jean-François Bernard with Chioccioli and Lejarreta just three seconds in arrears. Bugno was the surprise. No one expected him to lose two minutes in the first day in the Alps. He was supposed to inflict this kind of damage on the others.

  The second Alpine day concluded with two ascents to Sestriere and the order of finish was Spanish climber Eduardo Chozas followed in by Chiappucci, Lejarreta and Chioccioli. Bugno lost another 43 seconds.

  Heading off to the Dolomites, Chioccioli led Lejarreta by 26 seconds and Chiappucci by 1 minute 23 seconds. Bugno, two and a half minutes down, wasn’t the dominating rider he was the year before.