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

by McGann, Carol

  After the Erbe, the Hampsten trio still had over a minute. Induráin’s Banesto riders threw their weight into the chase and then finally Induráin and Leali started working the front, there being no sense in toying with a threat like Ugrumov. As the break closed in on the finish at Corvara, Gianni Bugno jumped away from the chasers and bridged the gap to the lead trio. The pack caught the break just at the line allowing Argentin to win a second stage. Confounding the experts, Leali kept his lead for another day.

  If Leali thought defending the lead in stage thirteen had been difficult, stage fourteen looked even more daunting. The day’s racing served up several category one climbs, generally the hardest rating in the Giro: the Costalunga, two ascents of the Pordoi, the Marmolada and the Campolongo. Moreover, the day was brutally long at 245 kilometers.

  Several riders, including Bugno—under intense pressure from the press to perform some sort of epic exploit—escaped before the Marmolada. On that almost interminable climb, the Spaniard looked for no help while setting such a hot pace that by the time his small group went over the top all the escapees had been reeled in and the few riders who remained with him looked to be holding on like grim death. Bugno had gone too deep for too long on the Marmolada and by the time he reached the crest he was pedaling squares with exhaustion written on his face.

  On the second crossing of the Pordoi, Induráin had Lelli, Poulnikov, Chiappucci, Pavel Tonkov and Ugrumov with him. Thirty-two seconds back, Hampsten was in a small group with Fondriest, who was desperate to get back on terms with the leaders. Through the rain they chased, but at the top of the Pordoi the gap had grown from 32 seconds to over a minute. In trouble, Leali crested over four minutes after Induráin.

  The Induráin group stayed away with Chiappucci winning the sprint after 7 hours 27 minutes of hard racing. Ugrumov was gapped at the end by 20 seconds and Induráin was back in pink:

  1. Miguel Induráin

  2. Piotr Ugrumov @ 49 seconds

  3. Claudio Chiappucci @ 1 minute 18 seconds

  4. Massimiliano Lelli @ 1 minute 38 seconds

  The Giro headed out of the Dolomites and turned west. On the eighteenth stage, a young rider on Chiappucci’s squad named Marco Pantani abandoned his first Giro.

  There were no mighty Alpine stages scheduled, but stage nineteen was a 55-kilometer uphill time trial to Sestriere. This was one of the last two chances to upset Induráin and it was on his own turf, a race against the clock.

  True to form, Induráin won the stage and extended his lead. Ugrumov, showing that he deserved second place in the General Classification, was second in the time trial.

  Ugrumov wasn’t giving up. The penultimate stage had a ten-kilometer climb to its hilltop finish at Oropa. Ugrumov attacked and attacked, trying to bludgeon the Spaniard into submission, and each time Induráin closed the gap. Induráin detested these constant accelerations and looked to be tiring. Finally Ugrumov let loose another bolt of speed and Induráin could not resist. He had cracked. As Induráin slowed, Chiappucci and several riders who had been dropped sped by. Ugrumov dug deep, trying to erase the 94-second gap that separated him from the Pink Jersey. But at the top, he fell short by 58 seconds.

  That made two Giri in a row for the Spaniard.

  Final 1993 Giro d’Italia General Classification: 1. Miguel Induráin (Banesto) 98 hours 9 minutes 44 seconds

  2. Piotr Ugrumov (Mecair-Ballan) @ 58 seconds

  3. Claudio Chiappucci (Carrera Jeans-Tassoni) @ 5 minutes 27 seconds

  4. Massimiliano Lelli (Ariostea) @ 6 minutes 9 seconds

  5. Pavel Tonkov (Lampre-Polti) @ 7 minutes 11 seconds

  Climbers’ Competition: 1. Claudio Chiappucci (Carrera Jeans-Tassoni): 42 points

  2. Mariano Piccoli (Mercatone Uno-Medeghini): 40

  3. Miguel Induráin (Banesto): 33

  Points Competition: 1. Adriano Baffi (Mercatone Uno-Medeghini): 228 points

  2. Maurizio Fondriest (Lampre-Polti): 187

  3. Miguel Induráin (Banesto): 167

  1994. Induráin came to the Giro with only twenty days of racing in his legs and no significant results. During the 1993 Tour he started to run out of gas as Tony Rominger cudgeled him day after day. The Swiss rider thought that if he hadn’t given up time early in the Tour, Induráin wouldn’t have had an early lead that allowed him to ride conservatively and negatively. Instead, he would have been forced to go on the offensive and that extra expenditure of energy might have cost him dearly and put the race in play. We’ll never know. But it certainly looked like Induráin was taking the early 1994 season rather easy and was not going to repeat 1993 and get over-cooked attempting the Giro/Tour double. Bugno had won nothing of note in 1993, but in the spring of 1994 he won one of the most prestigious of the Classics, the Tour of Flanders.

  The Carrera team was always a problem for Induráin and this year he had to have an extra set of eyes. Not only did he have to worry about Claudio Chiappucci’s constant and unexpected attacks, Carrera also had brilliant young climber Marco Pantani to torment the Spaniard.

  As a teenager, Marco Pantani’s climbing ability was already striking. Like Coppi, his parents were too poor to buy him a racing bike. But Italy is covered with a complex web of clubs and sponsors that help promising young riders get equipment and coaching, and this was true in Pantani’s case when he joined the Fausto Coppi Sports Club. As he moved up the ranks of amateur racing, he made three attempts to win the Baby Giro. A fall ruined his first chance, but he still took third place. Inattention at a crucial moment in his second attempt led him to miss an important break, resulting in second place. But in 1992 he cemented his victory in the Girobio with a tour de force ride over three of the famous climbs that surround the Gruppo Sella massif: the Sella, Gardena and Campolongo passes. That August he signed a professional contract to race for Davide Boifava’s Carrera team. Boifava had been in contact with Pantani for a while, watching him since 1990. Full of confidence, Pantani demanded bonus clauses in his pro contract for winning the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France.

  He may have felt sure of his cycling abilities, but during his short life he had already displayed some of the personality problems that would later spell so much trouble: a sense of insecurity that his Danish girlfriend would later say was rooted in a deep inferiority complex, as well as difficulty communicating and bonding in a normal way with friends, acquaintances and workmates.

  From the last part of the 1992 season through the spring of 1993, Carrera raced Pantani hard, using him in short stage races as well as sending him to northern Europe for some of the Classics. He handled this trial by fire well, finishing nearly all of his races, and he showed the right stuff with a fifth in the Giro del Trentino. Then, insanely, Carrera tossed him into the Giro to help Chiappucci. It was all too much too soon and as we’ve seen, Pantani had to retire during stage eighteen with tendinitis, marking the end his 1993 season.

  Gewiss had a formidable team. They were winning everything and the Giro was in their sights with Moreno Argentin, Piotr Ugrumov and the brilliant young Russian Evgeni Berzin, who had already won Liège–Bastogne–Liège that spring.

  The Giro started with a split-stage day. In the morning the course was a loop out and back to Bologna. Endrio Leoni won the sprint, which was so fast the peloton splintered in the final kilometer.

  More important was the afternoon seven-kilometer pan-flat individual time trial. Winner of the stage was a time trial specialist, Armand de las Cuevas. Berzin was second, only 2 seconds slower and Induráin was third at 5 seconds, while Bugno lost 14 seconds. De las Cuevas was the new leader with Berzin second and Induráin third.

  During stage two the Giro traveled south along the Adriatic coast for an uphill grunt into the city of Osimo. Ugrumov took a flyer and was looking like a winner, but just as he started to fade, Argentin launched an attack that was nothing short of
astonishing. He flew by his teammate and continued to distance himself from the field all the way to the line. Argentin was the year’s third owner of the Pink Jersey.

  Several times during the rolling stage three Bugno blasted away from the pack and was brought back. In the closing kilometers, with their steady climb into Loreto Aprutino, he escaped and managed to come across the line two seconds in front of the peloton. Good, but not good enough for pink. Argentin still held the lead with Bugno second at 7 seconds and Berzin third at 9.

  The first of four hilltop finishes came in stage four in the south of Italy. The riders left the flat road after about 60 kilometers and spent the next 140 in the mountains to finish at Campitello Matese.

  Oscar Pelliccioli went hunting for a stage win as the final hill began to rise. Others tried to get away, but when Berzin exploded out of what was left of the peloton it was over for everyone else. Beautiful is the only word for his form as he appeared to effortlessly stroke the pedals. He caught Pelliccioli near the top and out-sprinted him for the stage. Wladimir Belli was the first chaser across the line, coming in third; 47 seconds after Berzin was Marco Pantani. Argentin lost three minutes on the climb.

  The General Classification stood thus: 1. Evgeni Berzin

  2. Gianni Bugno @ 57 seconds

  3. Wladimir Belli @ 58 seconds

  The race headed north, up the Tyrrhenian side of the boot, without any particular effect upon the standings. Stage eight was a 44-kilometer individual time trial ending in the Tuscan town of Follonica. I don’t think anyone could have predicted the outcome of this stage. Berzin destroyed the field. Induráin, unable to find his rhythm, could only manage fourth.

  Photo of Berzin

  The stage results: 1. Evgeni Berzin

  2. Armand de las Cuevas @ 1 minute 16 seconds

  3. Gianni Bugno @ 1 minute 41 seconds

  4. Miguel Induráin @ 2 minutes 34 seconds

  5. Massimiliano Lelli @ 2 minutes 39 seconds

  That yielded the following General Classification: 1. Evgeni Berzin

  2. Armand de las Cuevas @ 2 minutes 16 seconds

  3. Gianni Bugno @ 2 minutes 38 seconds

  4. Miguel Induráin @ 3 minutes 39 seconds

  5. Marco Giovannetti @ 4 minutes 20 seconds

  A knife had been driven into the heart of the Induráin race strategy: gain significant time in the time trials and then match the climbers in the mountains. It was a coolly economic method, but one had to win the time trials to make it work. Induráin was aware of the danger of his situation and began scrapping for sprint time bonuses.

  Bugno was riding as if he had limitless reserves. Strangely for a former Giro winner and a rider sitting in third, he assumed gregario duties for his Polti team, chasing down breaks and setting up sprints for Polti’s speedster, Djamolidine Abdoujaparov. From the start of this year’s Giro he had been careless about losing or gaining time. When he won stage three Bugno slowed well before the line, being vastly more interested in making sure he could do a two-arm crowd salute than in squeezing every possible second out of his break.

  The Giro went into Austria and in stage fourteen, headed through the Dolomites to Merano, crossing four major passes on the way. It was on the final pass, the Giovo, that the real action occurred. A break had been away for many kilometers and on the Giovo it started to rain. Pascal Richard left the break as it began to disintegrate. Back in the maglia rosa group, Marco Pantani was finally given his freedom to seek a stage win, because his director knew that Chiappucci, also off the front, was not going to bring home the bacon in the 1994 Giro.

  Pantani, then sitting in tenth place at 6 minutes 28 seconds, blasted off, catching and passing all of the breakaway riders but Richard, and on the dangerous wet descent, caught and passed him. Tiny Pantani was a fearsome descender, one of the best of his era. Bugno put his team to work chasing Pantani, who still had nearly 30 kilometers of solo riding to go. Pantani had no intention of letting the moment go to waste and took every chance, cutting every corner to stay ahead of his pursuers.

  Pantani won the stage, 40 seconds ahead of the maglia rosa group led in by Bugno and Chiappucci. This perfectly executed ride was Pantani’s first professional victory, moving him up to sixth place. That evening, hungry for more, Pantani badgered his director for more information about the next day’s climbs.

  That following day was harder still, with the north face of the Stelvio, the Mortirolo and the Santa Cristina. It was snowing at the top of the Stelvio and there was some discussion of cancelling the climb, but the organizers decided to take the chance. The riders went up between walls of snow lining the wet, sloppy road of the Stelvio. Franco Vona was first over, while the Classification men stayed together.

  On the Mortirolo a small group of Berzin, Pantani and de las Cuevas formed behind Vona and a few other adventurers. And then Pantani was gone. Berzin tried to stay with him but soon realized the folly of his move.

  Pantani flew by all the breakaway riders who had been in front of him and crested the Mortirolo alone. Further back, Induráin dropped the others including Berzin and went off in search of Pantani. At the bottom of the Mortirolo, Induráin, with Nelson Rodriguez on his wheel, caught Pantani, but only because Pantani was told by his director to wait for help. Still further back Bugno had lost several minutes and was going to lose his third place.

  Pantani’s ascent of the Mortirolo had been jaw-dropping. The previous speed record for the climb was Chioccioli’s 15.595 kilometers per hour in the 1991 Giro, considered one of the great rides in Giro history. Pantani smashed the record, going 16.954 kilometers per hour. Italy was transfixed; more than six million Italian television viewers watched Pantani ride away from the world’s finest living stage racer.

  Induráin and Pantani formed a smooth-working duo with Rodriguez sitting on. As they went through Aprica for the first time, Berzin was two minutes back and Bugno over four. Next came the Santa Cristina ascent before the finish in Aprica.

  On the Santa Cristina neither Induráin nor Rodriguez, both at the end of their tethers, could contain the surging Pantani. Off he went and soloed into Aprica almost three minutes ahead of Chiappucci, the first chaser. Induráin came in 3 minutes 30 seconds after Pantani with Berzin another half-minute later. Pantani had elevated himself to second place, revealing himself as the first pure climber in the peloton since Lucien van Impe and the best since Charly Gaul. Maybe the finest ever.

  The new General Classification: 1. Evgeni Berzin

  2. Marco Pantani @ 1 minute 18 seconds

  3. Miguel Induráin @ 3 minutes 3 seconds

  4. Gianni Bugno @ 4 minutes 8 seconds

  5. Wladimir Belli @ 4 minutes 41 seconds

  Stage eighteen was the scene of the final time trial, a 35-kilometer hill climb leaving from the Ligurian seacoast town of Chiavari. Berzin had recovered from his hard days in the Dolomites and earned a clear-cut stage win. Induráin had indeed come to the Giro under-trained and his second place seemed to indicate he was riding into condition.

  Stage twenty was the first of two days in the Alps and it packed a wallop with the Agnello before crossing to France for a trip over the Izoard, Lautaret and a finish atop Les Deux Alpes.

  A small group of non-contenders went away on the Agnello and then in a flash Pantani was up to and past the break with only Hernán Buenahora glomming onto his wheel. They were together as they went up and over the Izoard with the Pink Jersey group containing Induráin and Chiappucci following at 1 minute 51 seconds. Berzin got into a spot of trouble on the Izoard ascent, but teammate Moreno Argentin led him back up to the leaders. After descending the Izoard, Pantani, seeing that the Berzin group was closing in, sat up and let Buenahora go. Buenahora was caught by those six riders from the early break who had continued riding ahead of the peloton.

  For a while Berzin had only Induráin and Pantani for company
on the Deux Alpes climb. Induráin tried an acceleration, but it wasn’t forceful enough to dislodge the Russian rider. In fact, Berzin answered with his own jump, which Induráin met, but Pantani was surprisingly gapped before slowly closing back up to the pair. After this the trio slowed and a few others joined them. Near the top, Poulnikov shot away from the break with Nelson Rodriguez and won the stage. Two minutes later Pantani led in Induráin and Berzin. Induráin was running out of Giro and Berzin and Pantani weren’t looking any weaker for their three weeks of racing.

  The General Classification was looking good for Berzin: 1. Evgeni Berzin

  2. Marco Pantani @ 2 minutes 55 seconds

  3. Miguel Induráin @ 3 minutes 23 seconds

  4. Pavel Tonkov @ 11 minutes 16 seconds

  There was still one more Alpine stage, number twenty-one, going from Les Deux Alpes to Sestriere. It took in the Lautaret, Montgenèvre and then did a loop that had the riders doing two ascents to Sestriere. It was a frigid day, with snow in Sestriere. The top riders stuck together and despite the harrowingly cold conditions, there was no change to the upper levels of the General Classification. There was now only the ride into Milan. Berzin had become the first Russian, in fact the first eastern bloc rider, to win a Grand Tour.

  Final 1994 Giro d’Italia General Classification: 1. Evgeni Berzin (Gewiss-Ballan): 100 hours 41 minutes 21 seconds