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

by McGann, Carol

  The next day was a short 125-kilometer day in the Dolomites and again it had a summit finish. At two kilometers from the top of Alpe di Siusi there were seven riders left, including Basso, Di Luca, Leipheimer, Menchov and Carlos Sastre. Near the finish Sastre tried to bolt but Menchov countered with Di Luca on his wheel. Even Di Luca had to give up, allowing Menchov to come in alone. Di Luca took the lead with Lövkvist five seconds behind.

  The day had wrecked the chances of several Giro hopefuls. Simoni lost a not-catastrophic 47 seconds. Damiano Cunego came in 32nd at 2 minutes 39 seconds and Armstrong was a further 19 seconds back. Stefano Garzelli’s General Classification hopes were certainly shattered with a giornata no that cost him 5 minutes 24 seconds.

  The General Classification was thus: 1. Danilo Di Luca

  2. Thomas Lövkvist @ 5 seconds

  3. Michael Rogers @ 36 seconds

  4. Levi Leipheimer @ 43 seconds

  5. Denis Menchov @ 50 seconds

  Then came two long days in the saddle. Stage six was 248 kilometers over mountainous terrain and stage seven was 244 kilometers of which 200 were a long slow uphill slog in cold rain that left the overall standings unchanged.

  The Astana riders had removed the logos from their racing kits of the Kazakh sponsors who hadn’t been paying the team. They were now two months in arrears and the UCI gave the team clearance to finish the Giro, but unless some solution were found, the team would lose its license.

  Stage nine, a downtown Milan circuit race, was planned to be a Giro showpiece. Each of the 15.4-kilometer laps around the Castello Sforzesco and Piazzale Loreto (where the Giro had started in 1909) had 25 corners. On the first lap a crash occurred and the riders started slowing down, riding four laps at only 32 kilometers per hour. Finally the pack came to a halt at the finish line and Di Luca took a microphone to explain to the crowd that because the peloton felt the course with trolley tracks and parked cars was unsafe, they couldn’t race it at full speed.

  After restarting, an occasional rider would try to lift the speed, indicating the peloton wasn’t unanimously behind the strike. When that would happen other riders would go to the front and snuff out the racing. Slowly the rate increased until the final laps were contested at full speed. Several racers pointed to Armstrong as the instigator of the strike, saying it was he who had complained several days earlier that this stage and the one previous to it were unsafe. Zomegnan was furious, having agreed earlier in the day to neutralize the stage and not let it count towards any of the classifications. He felt the slow-down was a betrayal. Furthermore, he argued that many races are filled with similar perils, such as Amstel Gold, but they weren’t the objects of strikes. Right or wrong, the day was ruined.

  During the rest day, Ivan Basso and Franco Pellizotti apologized for the riders’ actions. Basso said, “Sometimes you just get nervous and decisions made during the race are not always right.” On the other side Gilberto Simoni and Lance Armstrong remained unrepentant.

  The Giro organization was not the only unhappy player in this drama. Riders on the Lampre team had worked hard to stifle all attempts at igniting the racing. Lampre team management told Marzio Bruseghin, one of the most visible actors in the strike, to find a new employer for 2010. Basso said that no matter what had happened during the Milan stage, the riders were ready to race. He was certainly right about that.

  Stage ten was originally intended to be an homage to the Giro’s epic past by replaying the 1949 stage seventeen with its ascents of the Maddalena, Vars, Izoard, Montgenèvre and Sestriere that Coppi won so magnificently. Between landslides that closed some roads and a strange conflict between French and Italian radio frequencies that kept the Giro from going into France (both the Giro and the Tour regularly cross borders), the stage had to be redesigned. It still went from Cuneo to Pinerolo and was actually eight kilometers longer than the 1949 version, but in 2009 it went over the Moncenisio, Sestriere and Pra’ Martino climbs. It had neither the punch nor the romance of retracing Coppi’s epic ride.

  Halfway through the 262-kilometer alpine stage, Garzelli escaped on the Moncenisio. He increased his lead as he went through Sestriere (2009’s Cima Coppi), still alone, and continued into an energy-sapping headwind. Eventually two chasers, Andriy Grivko and Giovanni Visconti caught him, putting off the inevitable. The fast-moving maglia rosa group caught them on the lower slopes of the final climb, the Pra’ Martino. Franco Pellizotti tried to make himself scarce and indeed managed to go over the Pra’ Martino with a few seconds’ lead but was caught on the descent.

  Di Luca used the descent to get a small gap and held it to the end. Pellizotti, Menchov and Sastre followed Di Luca in 10 seconds later while Leipheimer and Basso lost a half-minute. Writers were impressed by Di Luca’s well-rounded prowess and his willingness to spend watts as if he were riding a Classic instead of a demanding Grand Tour.

  The General Classification at this point: 1. Danilo Di Luca

  2. Denis Menchov @ 1 minute 20 seconds

  3. Michael Rogers @ 1 minute 33 seconds

  4. Levi Leipheimer @ 1 minute 40 seconds

  5. Franco Pellizotti @ 1 minute 53 seconds

  Held on the Ligurian coast, the stage twelve 60.6-kilometer individual time trial was technically challenging with two ascents, prompting most riders to use conventional road bikes rather than their special time trial bikes.

  Menchov won in commanding fashion, leading at all check points; Di Luca lost almost a two minutes as well as the overall lead to the Russian. Leipheimer, who was only twenty seconds slower than Menchov, moved into third place. Forty seconds now separated the top three riders.

  Stage fourteen’s short, sharp final ascent into San Luca (Bologna) should have been a perfect launch point for Di Luca. He tried, but he didn’t have the punch to put any distance into his rivals. Di Luca was upset that the Liquigas team, which had promised to be aggressive, left the job of riding at the front entirely to his LPR team. Pellizotti answered that Liquigas was riding for its own interests and that’s what happens in racing.

  Stage sixteen was 237 kilometers of relentless climbing and descending with a finish atop Monte Petrano. Leipheimer had promised to use the stage’s difficulty as an opportunity to take the lead, feeling that with the day’s heat, the stage’s length and climbs, some riders would crack. Because the evening before had been so hot, many riders slept poorly. Italians commonly shun air conditioning because they believe the cold, dehumidified air will make them sick.

  An early break with Cunego, Popovych and Michele Scarponi managed to stay together until the penultimate mountain, the Catria. Further back, all of the Classification men stayed together with Menchov’s team riding tempo at the front of the peloton. Popovych took off on the descent. Back in the pack, Leipheimer got a flat and had to get paced back up just as the race was getting set for what everyone knew would be a rocket-fast race to the finish.

  At the base of Monte Petrano, Liquigas raised the pace. Not happy with that, Carlos Sastre’s Cervélo teammate Simon Gerrans went by the Liquigas men and went still faster. Then the expected occurred. Sastre attacked and was quickly brought back by the other contenders. Then Sastre went again. That was it. With a little over eight kilometers to the summit, Carlos Sastre was flying away, much as he had on l’Alpe d’Huez to win the 2008 Tour.

  Menchov and Di Luca, feeling that the race was between them, and that Sastre was too far down on time to chase, stayed together while Sastre soared up the mountain and passed all the breakaway riders.

  Further back, perhaps as a result of his post-puncture chase, Leipheimer was in crisis. Armstrong, who had been staying with the front group, went back and paced Leipheimer to the finish.

  After over seven hours of racing, Sastre won the stage by 25 seconds over Menchov, who managed to gap Di Luca by a single second. For Leipheimer, the day was a disaster. He lost almost three minutes and droppe
d down to sixth place while Sastre moved up to third. Several riders, including Leipheimer, said stage sixteen was the hardest day of racing they had ever endured. Sastre maintained he had come to the Giro to win, an unlikely outcome with so few stages left suited to his skills.

  The General Classification after stage sixteen: 1. Denis Menchov

  2. Danilo Di Luca @ 39 seconds

  3. Carlos Sastre @ 2 minutes 19 seconds

  4. Franco Pellizotti @ 3 minutes 8 seconds

  5. Ivan Basso @ 3 minutes 19 seconds

  Stage seventeen was a relatively short day, only 83 kilometers to Block Haus. The original plan had been to go an additional five and a half kilometers to the summit of Passo Laricano, but road damage during the winter altered plans. The riders looking to topple Menchov knew this was one of their last chances to gain time on the powerful Russian. Much was made of the fact that the race would pass through Di Luca’s hometown of Pescara and Di Luca himself said that a good showing in front of his fellow Abruzzese would be gratifying.

  Di Luca’s LPR team assumed their usual front position and whipped up the peloton’s speed as the Block Haus slope began to rise. Sastre’s Cervélo riders took over and sped things up a bit more, trying to set things up for another solo excursion on their team leader’s part.

  But it wasn’t Sastre or Di Luca who broke free, it was Pellizotti with Armstrong in hot pursuit. Armstrong couldn’t close the gap and had to return to the chasers but Pellizotti was well and truly gone. He came in alone, with a 42-second gap.

  With ten kilometers to go Di Luca blasted off and a grim-faced Menchov immediately reacted, glomming on to his wheel. All the way to the top Di Luca worked to free himself of his shadow, to no avail. Garzelli dragged himself up to the duo. This being a Giro of seconds, Di Luca and his fans were deeply disappointed when Garzelli won the sprint for second place, taking the valuable 12-second time bonus. Di Luca, who took third, had to be content with the 8 seconds he earned when he opened a gap on an exhausted Menchov in the sprint. At the awards ceremony, angry Di Luca fans booed and whistled Garzelli. Sastre had been unable to respond to the attacks and lost almost two minutes. The race was a two-man fight.

  The General Classification now: 1. Denis Menchov

  2. Danilo Di Luca @ 26 seconds

  3. Franco Pellizotti @ 2 minutes 0 seconds

  4. Ivan Basso @ 3 minutes 28 seconds

  5. Carlos Sastre @ 3 minutes 30 seconds

  All eyes looked to the nineteenth stage with its finish near the top of Mount Vesuvius. Eight kilometers from Vesuvius’ summit, Sastre teed off an attack by Basso and launched himself skyward. This time he had his good legs back and the rest were either uninterested in pursuing him or just couldn’t. Three kilometers later Di Luca gave it another shot, taking Menchov and Pellizotti with him. Menchov, looking only to stay with Di Luca and preserve his lead, hung on as Di Luca relentlessly attacked. But it was Pellizotti who was able to escape, closing to within 21 seconds of Sastre at the line. Di Luca beat Menchov for third, reducing their gap to just 18 seconds.

  Di Luca planned to use stage twenty’s intermediate sprint time bonus and the final sharp uphill finish to try to close in on Menchov before the time trial. Menchov ruined the plans for the intermediate sprint when he surprised Di Luca’s team with an early flier. Only quick thinking on teammate Petacchi’s part kept Menchov from grabbing the full 6 seconds in play, but Menchov had still gained 2 valuable seconds. On the uphill finish to Anagni, Belgian Classics specialist Philippe Gilbert ended Silence-Lotto’s winless Giro with a strong attack one and a half kilometers from the finish. Di Luca went to the Rome 14.4-kilometer individual time trial with a 20-second deficit. Menchov was regarded as the markedly superior time trialist and at this point, barring misfortune, the Giro belonged to the Russian.

  The Giro selected a magnificent backdrop for the final stage of the centenary Giro, sending the riders by the Roman Forum, the Vatican and the Coliseum. The weather wasn’t good, with on-and-off rain. Di Luca set off on a road bike and appeared to be out of the saddle most of his ride. At the first checkpoint, he was ahead by 5 seconds but that pace was too much and by mid-point he slowed. Di Luca was losing the Giro.

  Or was he? With less than a kilometer to go, Menchov went sliding behind his bike on the wet cobbles. He was up and on a new bike in a flash. He ended up gaining another 21 seconds that day, saving his Giro.

  The 2009 Giro was one of the most extraordinarily hard fought and exciting races I have ever had the privilege to watch. The duel between Menchov and Di Luca will go down as one of the great ones in cycling history. Di Luca fought every step of the way for every second he could get. He lost because, as he generously said, “In the end, the best guy won.”

  There were no doping positives in the 2009 Giro. Only the most naïve would believe that this meant that the entire peloton was clean: a VAM of 1838 for the Colle del Gato in stage eight, for example, gave reason for concern. In fact, disgraced racer Bernhard Kohl said that the current use of the “Biological Passport” (a record of an athlete’s biological markers used to detect variations that might give away use of banned substances) by the UCI made doping easy.

  Final 2009 Giro d’Italia General Classification: 1. Denis Menchov (Rabobank) 86 hours 3 minutes 11 seconds

  2. Danilo Di Luca (LPR Brakes-Farnese Vini) @ 41 seconds

  3. Franco Pellizotti (Liquigas) @ 1 minute 59 seconds

  4. Carlos Sastre (Cervélo) @ 3 minutes 46 seconds

  5. Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Doimo) @ 3 minutes 59 seconds

  Climbers’ Competition: 1. Stefano Garzelli (Acqua & Sapone-Caffe Mokambo): 61 points

  2. Danilo Di Luca (LPR Brakes-Farnese Vini): 45

  3. Denis Menchov (Rabobank): 41

  Points Competition: 1. Danilo Di Luca (LPR Brakes-Farnese Vini): 170 points

  2. Denis Menchov (Rabobank): 144

  3. Franco Pellizotti (Liquigas-Doimo): 133

  2010. Indeed, 2009 was a fairy tale too good to be true. While Menchov fended off questions about his involvement with the Humanplasma blood bank in Vienna, the other riders on the final podium were not as lucky. In July of 2009 it was announced that Di Luca had come up positive for EPO in two of the Giro stages. He was slapped with a two-year suspension and a 280,000 euro fine. During the week before the 2010 Giro’s start, the UCI announced that several riders had problems with their biological passports. Franco Pellizotti was accused of irregular blood values dating back to a sample given before the start of the 2009 Tour de France. The “Dolphin of Bibbione” and his team maintained that while the UCI’s experts may have thought they found clear evidence of doping, Pellizotti’s experts found the variations to be normal. Normal or not, being under investigation for doping, Pellizotti was pulled from his Liquigas’ team roster and was replaced by a rider who had been preparing to ride the Tour of California, Vincenzo Nibali. Nibali, seventh in the 2009 Tour, would join Ivan Basso in making Liquigas the most powerful team at the Giro.

  Since Menchov had decided to pass on the 2010 Giro to concentrate on the Tour, the Giro was missing its entire 2009 podium. The Giro didn’t give an invitation to Riccardo Riccò’s Flaminia team, preferring to see if the climber, just off his suspension, could stay out of trouble for a year. The field had stars nonetheless. Alexandre Vinokourov, who had just won both Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the Giro del Trentino after serving a two-year suspension for blood doping, was in formidable condition. World Champion Cadel Evans had his own Classic win that spring, the Flèche Wallonne. 2008 Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre was also back for another shot at pink.

  Showing the thinness of Italian stage racing talent that could avoid doping penalties, the best Italian hopes were Basso, Nibali and Garzelli. The 2010 Giro would be 38-year-old Gilberto Simoni’s farewell race.

  The Giro’s first three days were in the Netherland
s, where the riders would have to deal with powerful winds that blow in from the North Sea as well as narrow roads filled with obstructions the Dutch use to slow down traffic. After a transfer to Italy for a stage four team time trial, the Giro would build to a crescendo in the Dolomites. The list of famous climbs must have made the scalatori salivate: Monte Grappa, Monte Zoncolan, Plan de Corones (as a time trial), the Mortirolo, Gavia and Tonale. This would be a race for climbers who could survive the mean streets of Holland.

  Bradley Wiggins (fourth in the 2009 Tour) of the new, swaggering, wealthy and supremely British Team Sky took the first Pink Jersey after winning the stage one time trial in Amsterdam. Evans was 2 seconds slower while Vinokourov was just 5 seconds off the pace.

  No one was surprised by the carnage the next two days of racing on Dutch roads caused. Wiggins was delayed by a crash in the second stage, gifting the maglia rosa to Evans who was in pink for the first time since 2002.

  The next day Evans was slowed by fallen riders, having come across nearly the entire Sky team scattered across the road. Weirdly, they had chosen to ride deep dish carbon wheels in the brutal North Sea winds. Once Evans was back on his bike, he was without teammates and had to chase alone. When Vinokourov heard that Evans and other contenders were delayed by crashes he told his team to ramp up the pace. Not sporting perhaps, but certainly effective.

  So effective, in fact, that Vinokourov took the lead. Wiggins, part of that Sky team catastrophe, suffered a four-minute loss. Before his wheels touched Italian soil, the Great British Hope was effectively out of the race.