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

by McGann, Carol

  Stage sixteen, il tappone, was of surpassing difficulty with four major climbs: Forcella Staulanza, Passo di Valparola, Passo Furcia and the Terento, totaling 46 kilometers of climbing.

  By the time the Valparola had been crossed, Saeco had three good riders in various escapes that were ahead of the maglia rosa group. On the Furcia, Simoni stretched his legs and found Garzelli was having another bad day, and Popovych’s weak Landbouwkrediet team had already left him isolated. When the group got near the top of the Furcia, Cunego went like a bullet. Popovych had to make a choice, stay with Simoni, the team leader, or try to go with Cunego, who might be trying to get him to waste his energy by chasing a gregario’s attacks. There were no good choices. Popovych decided to stick with Simoni as Cunego disappeared.

  Martinelli told the scattered Saeco riders up the road to wait for Cunego, which they did, and soon there were four of them working together. By the final climb Cunego had dropped everyone and soloed in for his third stage win along with the overall lead. Saeco’s execution of a tactically perfect stage brought admiration from competitors and spectators alike.

  The General Classification at this point: 1. Damiano Cunego

  2. Serguei Gontchar @ 1 minute 14 seconds

  3. Yaroslav Popovych @ 2 minutes 22 seconds

  4. Gilberto Simoni @ 2 minutes 38 seconds

  5. Giuliano Figueras @ 3 minutes 31 seconds

  The evening before the second rest day, NAS executed another blitz on targeted Giro riders’ hotel rooms as part of an Italy-wide raid and came up empty.

  In the rest day interviews Simoni talked through clenched teeth when discussing Cunego’s Pink Jersey. Both Saeco riders explained that a pact had been made. While each would be free to ride his own race, neither would attack the other. Simoni said that he wanted to win this Giro with or without Cunego, but wasn’t sure how that eventuality could be brought about. The knowledge that Cunego had been given (or had taken) too much rope in the last stage seemed to weigh heavily upon Simoni who was already talking about the Tour and taking on Armstrong.

  Stage seventeen, with its single major climb, the Passo della Mendola before an uphill drag to Fondo Sarnonico was an unusual day of racing. Cunego had bike problems early in the stage and was given the wrong bike. Even more strangely, the maglia rosa had to chase back to the peloton largely on his own. It was a while before a couple of Saeco riders dropped back to help. Cunego continued to have mechanical problems and had to change bikes at least one more time.

  By far the weirdest event of all was Pavel Tonkov’s behavior. Halfway through the stage Alessandro Bertolini escaped with Oscar Pozzi. Late in the stage, on the Mendola, Tonkov bridged up to the now solo Bertolini. With a few kilometers to go Tonkov dropped Bertolini and soloed in to the finish. It would have been fine win, except he saluted the crowd with a vulgar gesture as he crossed the line. Tonkov had suffered through several bad years and this was his first big win in some time. He showed his pent-up anger that was caused, in part, by teams that had had either folded midseason (Mercury) or had failed to pay him. Cunego took his difficult day in stride. It’s easy to be nice when wearing pink.

  There were still two hard days before the promenade into Milan. Stage eighteen featured the Tonale, the south face of the Gavia (the 2004 Cima Coppi) and a hilltop finish at the Bormio 2000 ski station.

  Garzelli had no intention of giving up. On the Gavia he attacked and got a sizable gap. By the time he crested, riding by snow banks that lined the road, he was about two minutes ahead of the Cunego group, which contained all of the other contenders. Saeco labored to bring Garzelli back. Even though he had picked up some riders from earlier breakaways, Garzelli was forced to do all the work down in the valley, and into a headwind at that. At the start of the climb to Bormio 2000, Garzelli was caught. A couple of kilometers later Simoni made his big move to take the lead, but it was an attack without real bite. Sella, Gontchar, Cunego, Pérez-Cuapio and Dario David Cioni clawed their way up to Simoni. It was a nervous group of five that approached the sprint. Cunego seemed to be looking around for Simoni to give him a lead out but Simoni was out of suds and couldn’t answer the call. Finally Cunego just kicked it and easily won the sprint, making four stage wins for Cunego, now nicknamed “The Little Prince of Verona”.

  Simoni didn’t handle the loss well. After the stage, while Cunego was basking in his glory, surrounded by photographers and writers, Simoni went by on his way to the hotel and called him a bastard. Cunego didn’t have dinner until after Simoni had left the dining room. In Simoni’s mind, Cunego had betrayed him by riding too hard in the final kilometers, weakening the older rider who was desperate for the stage win. Simoni felt Cunego then jumped too fast in the sprint rather than giving a Simoni a proper lead out.

  The new General Classification was thus: 1. Damiano Cunego

  2. Serguei Gontchar @ 1 minute 31 seconds

  3. Gilberto Simoni @ 3 minutes 7 seconds

  4. Yaroslav Popovych @ 3 minutes 23 seconds

  5. Dario David Cioni @ 4 minutes 44 seconds

  Stage nineteen, the Giro’s penultimate day, was to be just as hard as the last few days in the mountains with the Mortirolo, Vivione and Presolana passes, totaling about 40 kilometers of climbing. The split between Simoni and Cunego was certainly no secret. La Gazzetta Dello Sport’s headline for stage nineteen: “Simoni-Cunego: Il Grande Freddo” (literally, “The Big Cold”).

  Garzelli still had no thought about laying down his arms, even though he was five and a half minutes behind Cunego. Garzelli attacked hard on the Mortirolo, taking with him Simoni and Tadej Valjavec. This trio, picking up and dropping earlier breakaways, forged ahead resolutely.

  Cunego was down to only one teammate, but that teammate was Eddy Mazzoleni, an experienced gregario di lusso. Mazzoleni advised his young charge to remain calm. As the pursuit rolled up and down the mountains, the Garzelli/Simoni group was never able to enlarge the two-minute lead they had over the Cunego group when they crested the Mortirolo.

  On the final kilometers of the Presolana, it was down to just Simoni and Garzelli with the Cunego group containing Gontchar and Tonkov about a minute back. Garzelli took the well-earned stage victory. Since the duo had only managed to carve out a 52-second lead over Cunego, the young man stayed in pink and Gontchar kept second place, but only by 3 seconds. Simoni’s attempt to undercut Cunego had failed. The 2004 Giro was Cunego’s, Simoni acknowledging that he had not brought the same form to the 2004 Giro that had won him two earlier editions.

  That left only the final run-in to Milan. Fassa Bortolo gave another class on lead-out trains and Petacchi scored in the final stage, giving him nine stage wins.

  Simoni hugged Cunego on the final podium and said nice things about the new young star. But before the Giro was even over, Simoni was already talking about getting out of his Saeco contract.

  Final 2004 Giro d’Italia General Classification: 1. Damiano Cunego (Saeco): 88 hours 40 minutes 43 seconds

  2. Serguei Gontchar (De Nardi) @ 2 minutes 2 seconds

  3. Gilberto Simoni (Saeco) @ 2 minutes 5 seconds

  4. Dario David Cioni (Fassa Bortolo) @ 4 minutes 36 seconds

  5. Yaroslav Popovych (Landbouwkrediet-Colnago) @ 5 minutes 5 seconds

  Climbers’ Competition: 1. Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner): 56 points

  2. Damiano Cunego (Saeco): 54

  3. Gilberto Simoni (Saeco): 36

  Points Competition: 1. Alessandro Petacchi (Fassa Bortolo): 250 points

  2. Damiano Cunego (Saeco): 153

  3. Olaf Pollack (Gerolsteiner): 148

  Cunego had an incredible 2004. He not only won the Giro with four stage wins, he took the Giro del Trentino, Tour of Lombardy (masterfully), Giro dell’Appennino and raced the Vuelta and the Japan Cup. Plus he traveled to the U.S. for a bicycle trade show. This was an insane schedule for a
rider 22 years old and he paid dearly for it. He never again had a season like this.

  The 2004 Giro had no doping positives. That does not mean that the riders were clean. It means simply that the testers were unable to find any objective, verifiable evidence that a rider was competing in the Giro with banned substances in his system. NAS certainly believed that that the riders were up to no good. So in early June they executed another giant raid and this time came up with lots of bad stuff. NAS was targeting riders who were known to have had an association with Dr. Carlo Santuccione, one of several doctors who have had a poisonous effect upon Italian racing for many years. In his 1994 doping investigation, Sandro Donati listed him as being particularly influential in assisting cyclists who wanted to dope.

  Santuccione’s phone had been tapped and hidden microphones had been placed to record his conversations. They revealed that Santuccione was both advising several riders how to dope and also prescribing drugs to athletes. By late June the fallout from the raid was extensive. Fifteen bicycle racers were among those whom the police net had ensnared. Among those implicated were three Saeco riders: Eddy Mazzoleni, Danilo Di Luca and Alessandro Spezialetti. This was happening just days before the Tour de France was to start.

  Saeco was combative regarding bringing the implicated riders to the big race. Mazzoleni was suspended but Saeco Manager Claudio Corti argued that Lance Armstrong was also accused of using drugs and he was starting the Tour. Under these circumstances Corti said he saw no reason against using his other accused racers.

  This whole scandal was given a name, “Oil for Drugs”. The name’s origins are impossible to pin down now, but it appears to be a take-off from the “Oil for Food” program that was designed to allow Iraq to sell oil for humanitarian purposes.

  In late June the Tour organization announced that no rider under investigation or involved in legal procedures involving doping could ride the Tour. Di Luca, up to his chin in both was excluded from the 2004 Tour.

  The Italian judicial system can proceed at a glacial pace and the Oil for Drugs scandal took years to resolve; only in October of 2004 did the trial for the defendants of the 2001 NAS blitz begin.

  In the fall of 2004 RCS Sport reorganized the management of the Giro. Angelo Zomegnan, a senior editor at La Gazzetta dello Sport, succeeded Carmine Castellano, who had directed the Giro since 1989. Zomegnan’s new official title was “Director of Sporting Events”.

  2005. Professional racing was given a profound re-organization with the institution of the Pro Tour. UCI boss Hein Verbruggen rammed through his vision of how the sport should be run. The twenty best teams were given a “Pro Tour” license good for four years. The most important races, which included the Grand Tours and the Classics, were given Pro Tour status. All Pro Tour teams would have to compete in all races that were on the Pro Tour calendar. The purpose of this reorganization was to give stability to the teams and a high quality peloton to all the major races. Not happy with what they saw as a bald UCI power grab, the promoters of the Grand Tours pushed back, finding many of the Pro Tour rules encroaching on their ability to run their races as they saw fit. While negotiations between the UCI and the Grand Tour organizers dragged on, both sides agreed to disagree and proceeded to run the season under a flag of truce. The result for the Giro was that all 20 Pro Tour teams had an automatic invitation to ride and the Giro organization could give one team a wild card invitation. Over the winter Saeco and Lampre merged their squads into a new Lampre-Caffita team. The new super team signed both Cunego and Simoni and brought in Giuliano Figueras. Team boss Claudio Corti said that Simoni was the sole team leader for the 2005 Giro. Months later Simoni was still complaining about the 2004 stage eighteen sprint at the Bormio 2000 ski station, claiming again that Cunego had reneged on a promise to help him.

  Cunego took it all in stride, denying that there had been a deal and announced his own goal of defending his Giro championship, yet he also said that Simoni was the team leader. Both riders showed admirable form coming into the Giro. Cunego, planning to ride both the Giro and the Tour, rode well in the Tour of Romandie, winning a stage and coming in second overall. Simoni won the Giro dell’Appennino.

  Cunego thought the Giro would be harder this year because the Pro Tour brought more top teams to the race, improving the quality of the field. Perhaps this was what the Giro needed to help it finally make the leap from an important regional race to becoming a real competitor to the Tour.

  Other potential challengers included Savoldelli, Garzelli, Di Luca and Ivan Basso. Savoldelli moved to T-Mobile in 2002 and suffered through two years of crashes and sickness. Now riding for the Discovery Channel squad, he was fit, confident and ready to put the bad years behind him. Still, Discovery team boss Johan Bruyneel didn’t send a strong support squad to help Savoldelli. He wasn’t about to use up his best riders on the Giro when he needed them to help Armstrong win a seventh Tour. Savoldelli would largely be on his own.

  Ivan Basso, on Bjarne Riis’ CSC team, said that he was going for the Giro/Tour double but had no notable success so far in 2005. Garzelli and Di Luca were teammates on the Liquigas team with Garzelli being the designated leader. Di Luca was enjoying a year of grace, having already won Tour of the Basque Country, Amstel Gold and the Flèche Wallonne, and he was the current leader in the Pro Tour standings.

  The Giro was still going through a financial rough patch. Again, RCS Sport had not been able get the expected price for the Giro’s television rights. Because of this financial shortfall the prize money was reduced by fifteen percent and the Giro tried to avoid paying the UCI mandated 60,000 euros per team start money. This, while the Tour was swimming in cash and had almost doubled its prize money over the previous half-decade.

  Despite the Giro’s troubles, the start list had riders from 29 countries and was probably the most international ever. Of the 197 starters, 145 were foreign.

  The 2005 route was rather straightforward. Starting at the tip of the Italian toe with a short prologue, the route headed up the boot, mostly keeping to the western side of the peninsula until it reached Tuscany. Then it scooted over to the eastern side and up into the Dolomites. The penultimate stage was planned to be a big and possibly decisive show with an ascent on the unpaved road up the Finestre, a diabolically steep mountain. The 2005 Giro wasn’t designed to be a complete free-for-all for the climbers. A second time trial was restored so that the total distance against the clock was 73.65 kilometers, enough to give the race some balance.

  The prologue, a pan-flat 1.15-kilometer time trial along the shore of Reggio Calabria, was the second-shortest stage in Grand Tour history (the shortest was the 1986 Giro’s prologue). Track rider Brett Lancaster won, but sitting in fourth, with the same time as Alessandro Petacchi and only 1 second slower than Lancaster was Savoldelli.

  The first stage had a short, hard uphill finish, a perfect place for the racer nicknamed Il Grillo (The Cricket) to launch a decisive attack and leave the fastest men in the world behind. This victory gave Paolo Bettini, the reigning Olympic Road Race Champion, two things he had never had before: a Giro stage victory and the maglia rosa.

  Stage two should have been the place for Petacchi to start where he had left off the year before. With four kilometers of straight road leading to the finish line, the Fassa Bortolo train was expected to lead Petacchi to the first of several stage wins. Not this time. Several speedy racers created a traffic jam, boxing Petacchi in and allowing Robbie McEwen to take the stage and the Pink Jersey.

  The next day Di Luca won stage three by millimeters from a 50-man group, the 20-second time bonus putting him a hair’s breadth from the lead.

  The General Classification was thus: 1. Paolo Bettini

  2. Danilo Di Luca @ 9 seconds

  3. Damiano Cunego @ 17 seconds

  4. Stefano Garzelli @ 23 seconds

  5. Paolo Savoldelli @ 26 seconds

  The Giro w
ent north and stage five brought it to Abruzzo, Di Luca’s home region. At 223 kilometers and with plenty of hills, it was the year’s longest stage. Bettini had been relegated the day before for irregular sprinting and was so angry he threatened to withdraw from the Giro. Since he was in pink, no one took his bluff seriously. In stage five he got in a good break of non-threatening riders that was caught in the final kilometers. That allowed Di Luca to take a clean win and regain the lead by three seconds over Bettini.

  The next day was again expected to be perfect for Petacchi. This time the Fassa Bortolo train crashed just before the line and McEwen, a skilled opportunist, won. So far, no stage wins for Petacchi. Cunego’s prediction had been correct. Making the Giro a Pro Tour race improved the quality of the field so that Fassa Bortolo could not dominate the sprints the way it had in the past.

  Through Tuscany they raced, and race hard they did. After only a few kilometers into stage seven, a large, well-organized group broke away, eventually gaining thirteen minutes from an indifferent peloton. Finally, the team directors figured out that this could turn out to be a dangerous fuga di bidone and the chase began. There were two climbs in the final quarter of the stage. The first one, the San Baronto, let Spanish rider Koldo Gil escape the break as it was losing steam. On the second, the short but stiff Salita di Sammommè, an unsuccessful attack by José Rujano was answered by an acceleration from Simoni that broke the string. Garzelli and Basso couldn’t take the speed and a new group with Simoni, Cunego and Savoldelli headed down the hill in the rain, hell-bent to make sure the dropped riders stayed dropped. Gil took the stage and only 20 seconds later Cunego won the field sprint.