The Story of the Giro d'Italia

by Carol McGann

  The Story of the Giro d’Italia

  A Year-by-Year History of the Tour of Italy

  Volume Two:

  1971–2011

  Bill & Carol McGann

  Table of Contents

  Preface and Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  1. 1971–1978: The Giro Becomes an International Race and Foreigners Run Off with the Spoils

  2. 1979–1986: Moser and Saronni, the Last Great Italian Cycling Rivalry

  3. 1987–1991: The Giro Delivers Some of the Most Exciting Races in Its History

  4. 1992–1997: Foreigners Again Dominate and Cycling Enters its Most Troubled Time Ever

  5. 1998–2003: The Rise and Fall of Marco Pantani

  6. 2004–2011: Angelo Zomegnan Takes Over and the Giro Thrives

  Glossary

  Bibliography

  Photos

  Excerpts from other McGann Publishing books

  Preface to the Kindle edition

  All of the photos are at the end of the book. There will be a link to each photo in the appropriate place in the text, and when you get to the photo, there will be a link (it may be on the following page if you are using a large font size) to bring you back to where you were reading in the text.

  Cover photo: Stage 13, the queen stage, of the 2005 Giro d’Italia.

  Look at them, as they pedal and pedal through the fields, hills and forests. They are pilgrims traveling to a distant city that they will never reach: they symbolize, in flesh and blood, as depicted in an ancient painting, the incomprehensible adventure of life. That’s what it is—pure romanticism. —Dino Buzzati

  Preface and

  Acknowledgments

  A few notes about the text With its rich history, virtually unknown to English-speaking readers, writing the story of the Giro d’Italia was a labor of love. I wish I could have gone deeper into the individual stories of each rider, but since the text is already at two volumes, and fat ones at that, I had to stick to the plan of a year-by-year history, emphasizing the race itself.

  I know many cycling fans dislike drugs being part of cycle racing narratives. But it is too important to be swept under the carpet; in the 1990s and early 2000s it is a sad and crucial part of our story. With riders dying and race results regularly affected by modern science inappropriately applied, a hard look at drugs is necessary.

  Where a place or event has a commonly used English equivalent, I have generally used the English term, such as Turin for Torino, Tuscany for Toscana and Tour of Lombardy for Giro di Lombardia. When I use Giro (or its Italian plural Giri) alone in this book, it means the Giro d’Italia, even though there are many races in Italy with Giro in their titles. Likewise, Tour means the Tour de France and Vuelta means the Vuelta a España.

  There is a glossary of both English and Italian cycling terms at the back of the book.

  The unedited texts of our interviews are posted on our website: www.bikeraceinfo.com/oral-history.html

  Acknowledgements This book could not have been written without the generous assistance of several kind people who possess a deep love of cycling’s history and culture. Larry Theobald, co-owner of CycleItalia bike tours, is a man mad about bikes and Italy. Larry sent me several precious, out-of-print reference books that were essential to this project and was kind enough to review this text and make valuable suggestions.

  Valeria Paoletti conducted several interviews for me. Though a busy research scientist, she was always available when I couldn’t figure out the meaning of some Italian passage.

  Several gentlemen, James Witherell, Owen Mulholland, Les Woodland, and Gino Cervi, all with deep knowledge of cycling history, reviewed all or parts of this manuscript; all suggested improvements that were gratefully accepted. Steve Lubanski sent me several rare books that were of immeasurable value.

  Any errors in this book are my own.

  Many passages in this book are written in the singular, first person, usually expressing some opinion I hold, but Carol’s contribution to this work easily equals my own; hence the author credit.

  —Bill McGann

  Introduction

  Our Story So Far The first volume of our Giro d’Italia history explains the Giro’s origins in 1909 and tells the story of the Tour through 1970. In this volume we begin the story in medias res, jumping right in with the Giro’s 1971 edition.

  If the reader hasn’t read the first volume, the following synopsis of the Giro’s first 61 years will help make the narrative that follows understandable.

  In the nineteenth century newspapers used a multitude of devices to increase their sales. Much of what both Charles Dickens and Alexandre Dumas wrote was serialized in newspapers. People breathlessly bought the next day’s edition to learn how Oliver Twist or the Three Musketeers would get out of the fix the authors left them in at the end of the last installment. From 1895 to 1898, Darwin and Hattie McIlrath, sponsored by the Chicago Inter Ocean newspaper, took a 3-year trip around the world by bicycle while the paper printed weekly reports of their progress. Newspapers would often create their own news, for which they were the only suppliers in an era before radio and television.

  Around 1862 Frenchman Pierre Lallement had the inspiration to connect pedals to a crank and the crank to a wheel, and with that brilliant invention the bicycle was born. In 1867 Pierre Michaux began manufacturing bicycles in Paris. Almost from that moment, the newspapers understood the magical appeal of men crossing great distances on these wonderful new machines and began promoting bicycle races. In 1869 Le Vélocipède Illustré sponsored the 130-kilometer Paris–Rouen race. Other papers jumped in and soon Europe was covered with races as people along the race routes eagerly bought papers that told the story of the race and listed the results. Both cycle racing and the papers thrived under this symbiosis.

  In 1902 Henri Desgrange, the editor of the French sports newspaper L’Auto, was desperately searching for some way to drive competitor Pierre Giffard, and his newspaper Le Vélo, out of business. Desgrange’s paper was the creation of right-wing industrialists who were upset with the liberal politics and high-priced advertising that characterized Giffard’s paper.

  At the suggestion of one of his writers, Desgrange took the audacious step of promoting a month-long bicycle race around France, a plan much grander than the one-day races that were the norm. His race would have the competitors ride six separate races, with rest days between each race, in a great tour of France. He then added up each rider’s accumulated time for each race, or stage, called the General Classification. The winner was the rider with the lowest total elapsed time. This kind of multiple-race competition is called a stage race. This is the most glamorous and prestigious type of bicycle road racing, and we can credit Desgrange and his staff with its invention and refinement.

  The first running of this Tour de France in 1903 was a smashing success. L’Auto’s sales soared, driving Le Vélo out of business. Despite a few missteps, Desgrange and his Tour (and believe me, it was his Tour) went on to become first a French and then an international institution. Of the twelve Tours run before the First World War, four were won by foreigners.

  As the fortunes of Desgrange’s Tour and L’Auto waxed, newspapermen in Italy saw what promoting a national tour could do for sales. Learning that a competing paper planned to put on such a race in Italy, the struggling sports newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport decided it had to take quick action. Throwing caution to the wind, the paper announced it would promote a Giro d’Italia, or Tour of Italy, in 1909. It was an audacious move because the struggling paper had trouble ev
en making payroll, and coming up with the money to put on such a gigantic enterprise looked to be nearly impossible.

  But the creative men at La Gazzetta hustled up and down Italy and found the funds to run their race and on May 13, 1909, the Giro’s first peloton of 127 riders left from the Piazzale Loreto in downtown Milan for an eight-stage trip that went as far south as Naples before returning to Milan. In these early years the Giro calculated its standings on the basis of points (as had the Tour since 1905), the winner of a stage getting one point, second place, two points, etc. The rider with the lowest accumulated point total was declared the winner. In 1914 the Giro switched to making the winner the rider with the lowest accumulated time, and so it has remained.

  Racing in those days was a brutal business. Each day’s race or stage could approach 400 kilometers and take more than fourteen hours to complete, necessitating night-time starts. The riders spent long hours on unpaved roads that turned to mud when it rained. The bikes were single-speed, derailleurs not becoming common until the early 1930s. Before derailleurs, the rear hubs were double sided and could accommodate up to four cogs. When a rider wanted to change gears, he would dismount, remove the rear wheel, flip it around, remount it and be on his way.

  The Giro d’Italia was a hit, making La Gazzetta dello Sport a profitable, widely read paper. As the years passed, bicycle racing became Italy’s favorite sport. Unlike the Tour, which attracted competitors from all over western Europe, the Giro was basically an Italian race with no foreign winners until after the Second World War.

  In the years surrounding the First World War, a man of astounding ability appeared. Costante Girardengo, plagued with bad luck and a fiery temper that held him to only two Giro victories, was nicknamed the Campionissimo, or Champion of Champions.

  As Girardengo aged, another great talent emerged, Alfredo Binda, who became the first man to win the Giro five times and during one edition, took the lead in the first stage and held the lead to the end (as had Girardengo in 1919). The rivalry between Girardengo and Binda became the first of the great duels in Italian cycling. The Italian cycling fans, called tifosi, loved the disputes (polemiche in Italian) between the riders, and argued passionately among themselves as to which rider was the greater. That was the beauty of the sport in those days. Even the poorest farmer could stand on the side of the road and watch his hero whiz by and that afternoon he could join in the polemica while playing dominoes at the local bar.

  In 1935 Gino Bartali, who could soar up mountains like no other, arrived on the scene. When the road became steep, he could leave the others behind at will. Never possessing a fine tactical or strategic sense, his raw talent and willingness to suffer (one of his nicknames was “The Man of Iron”) made him one of the greatest riders in the history of the sport. Among his many victories, he won the Giro three times and the Tour twice. In the late 1930s he fought epic duels with a rider now largely forgotten outside Italy, Giovanni Valetti.

  A skinny racer from Piedmont was hired in 1939 to help Bartali (a rider who is paid to help another win is called a gregario in Italy and a domestique in the rest of the world). After Bartali was injured in a fall in the 1940 Giro, the new rider, Fausto Coppi, became the youngest racer to win the Giro. Coppi turned into Italy’s greatest-ever rider, and arguably the finest rider in the history of the sport. Coppi became the next campionissimo. He revolutionized the sport, applying science to his training and diet. He turned his cycling team into a machine dedicated to delivering Fausto Coppi to the finish line first.

  But Bartali didn’t give up his place in the sun without a fight. The Coppi/Bartali rivalry was the greatest ever in the history of cycling. Every tifoso lined up behind either Coppi or Bartali and passionately argued for his man. The competition between the two lifted the sport and made the two greater and richer than either of them would have been without the other.

  Coppi won the Giro five times and became the first rider to win the Tour and the Giro in the same year. In fact, he did it twice. When Coppi died in 1960, even though Italy had often treated Coppi roughly over his disordered private life, the entire peninsula mourned his passing. As one writer said, “I pray that the good God will one day soon send us another Coppi.”

  One of the men working to launch the Giro back in 1909, Armando Cougnet, became the race’s director, a position he held through 1949. In 1946 Cougnet began delegating responsibilities to Vincenzo Torriani, a young writer on the staff of La Gazzetta, and in 1949 Torriani became the Giro’s sole director.

  The 1950s were an exciting time for cycling. Probably no other era was so rich in talent and interesting personalities. It was also a time of ferment in the bicycle industry, which so far had been the sole support of the sport. As Europeans put aside their bikes and started traveling on mopeds and in cars, many bike factories faced with plunging sales could no longer support their race teams. In 1954, future three-time Giro winner Fiorenzo Magni saved his team by signing Nivea face cream to be his sponsor. The move was initially resisted, but today the lion’s share of racing’s money comes from outside the cycle industry.

  Torriani created fearsome races with staggeringly difficult ascents. He was willing to run stages in the most appalling weather, creating several of the Giro’s greatest legends. But Torriani knew the tifosi wanted an Italian to win the Giro, and his unfortunate legacy is one of bias against foreign riders. Despite his efforts, foreign riders still did well in the Giro, winning three Giri in the 1960s.

  The final chapter of Volume One told of the arrival of a rider with an inexhaustible drive to win, Eddy Merckx. He stunned the cycling world with an attack on the steep Block Haus climb in the 1967 Giro that left the world’s best behind. Merckx didn’t win the Giro that year but in 1968 he triumphed with his first Grand Tour (three-week national stage race) win. In 1969 he was booted from the Giro with a doping positive that still has people scratching their heads. In 1970, fueled with the rage of his 1969 expulsion, he executed a perfect race, winning with an unusual economy. That made two Giro wins for the man nicknamed “The Cannibal”.

  And now, the 1971 Giro d’Italia.

  Chapter 1

  1971–1978: The Giro Becomes an International Race and Foreigners Run Off with the Spoils

  1971. “The Vikings have landed” trumpeted La Gazzetta dello Sport with the arrival of the Pettersson brothers. As the Swedish national team, Gösta, Sture, Erik and Thomas had dominated the now-discontinued 100-kilometer Team Time Trial World Championship. In 1964 (with Sven Hamrin instead of Thomas) they took a bronze at the Tokyo Olympics. In 1967, ’68 and ’69 they won gold medals at the World Championships as well as silver at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Gösta turned in a masterful performance in the 1968 Tour of Britain (then called the Milk Race), taking the lead in the first stage and holding it to the end. Offers to turn pro were plentiful, but the Petterssons turned them all down until 1970. Gösta wanted to avoid the wild-west doping that prevailed among the pros (he also hated racing against the Iron Curtain teams, some of which had very advanced government-financed drug programs) and refused to even consider competing with the professionals until he felt competent drug testing had been implemented. Ferretti team manager Alfredo Martini finally prevailed and signed the four Swedes. Coincidentally the Ferretti kitchen equipment sponsor was owned by four brothers.

  In his first year as a pro at the ripe old age of 29, Gösta won the Tour of Romandie and the Coppa Sabatini, came in sixth in the Giro and third in the Tour. It was a splendid way to begin a professional career.

  For the 1971 Giro, Martini put three of the Petterssons in his lineup, Gösta, Erik and Sture. Gösta had shown good early-season form when he came in second to Merckx in Paris–Nice.

  Spaniard José-Manuel Fuente turned pro in 1969 and made his Grand Tour debut in the 1970 Vuelta. His sixteenth place, 5 minutes 23 seconds behind winner Luis Ocaña, was considered a revelation. The talented climber signed to ride the
1971 season for KAS, one of Spain’s greatest-ever teams. KAS brought their prodigy to the Giro along with Spanish hardmen Vicente López-Carril, Andrés Gandarias, Francisco Gabica and Domingo Perurena.

  Eddy Merckx decided not to contest the Giro in 1971, choosing instead to ride the Dauphiné Libéré, which he won along with 54 other races that year, including the Tour and the World Championship.

  Merckx had moved to Molteni where he wore the iconic brown and black jersey of the Italian sausage company from 1971 through 1976. Molteni’s 1971 Giro team was anchored by Herman van Springel, who’d missed winning the Tour in 1968 by only 38 seconds.

  SCIC (another kitchen equipment maker, as was Salvarani) assembled a first-rate squad with Franco Balmamion, Davide Boifava, Michele Dancelli, Giancarlo Polidori and Claudio Michelotto.

  Italian observers thought (hoped?) Salvarani’s Felice Gimondi and Gianni Motta would be the men to beat. Yes, these two ferocious opponents were on the same team, some said in order to find a way to beat Merckx. In fact, Gimondi was distressed when he learned that the Salvarani brothers had signed Motta in response to Gimondi’s poor 1969 season.

  Gimondi felt Motta’s abilities and psychology made them natural competitors, not collaborators, and they had no business being on the same team. Motta initially turned out to be a poor bet, needing surgery in the spring of 1970 to correct an old problem from a crash in the 1965 Tour of Switzerland, making him unable to ride the Giro that year. But in 1971 he came back, winning the Tour of Romandie—the Swiss stage race that comes just before the Giro, often used by Giro contenders to put a fine edge on their form. Gimondi had no significant victories in the spring of 1971, his best result being a second place to Merckx in Milan–San Remo with Gösta Pettersson third.