The Story of the Giro d'Italia

by Carol McGann

  The ferocity of the racing in stage eleven had been a surprise, since a 40-kilometer time trial was the next day’s race. Again Torriani showed his creativity. Instead of a single 40-kilometer run, the day had two 20-kilometer races spaced a couple of hours apart. Merckx won the first one with his teammate Roger Swerts and Gimondi 11 seconds behind. Swerts turned the tables on the second ride, beating Merckx by 11 seconds. The judges awarded the overall stage to Merckx, who was 26/100 of a second faster.

  If you have ever wondered what it would take to ride like the pros, writer Peter Fretwell recorded the gear ratios the best riders used that day. Try to stay on top of gears like these:

  Eddy Merckx: 55 x 13 for the first ride, 54 x 14 for the second

  Roger Swerts: 54 x 13

  Roger de Vlaeminck: 54 x 13 & 14

  After the time trial, the General Classification stood thus: 1. Eddy Merckx

  2. Gösta Pettersson @ 1 minute 32 seconds

  3. José-Manuel Fuente @ 3 minutes 59 seconds

  4. Miguel-María Lasa @ 5 minutes 41 seconds

  5. Felice Gimondi @ 6 minutes 26 seconds

  Stage fourteen featured two climbs, Sestriere and a mountain new to the Giro, the Jafferau, topped by the town of Bardonecchia. As the climb to Sestriere started to bite, the Spaniards started to dish out some pain to the slow-moving peloton. Almost instantly a front group of fourteen containing most of the big names (but missing Bitossi and de Vlaeminck) formed. After three attacks, Fuente managed to extract himself from this group and meet up with two teammates who were already off the front, López-Carril and Galdós. López-Carril was unable to withstand the pace and soon dropped off.

  Merckx, who had met Fuente’s first two attacks, decided to climb at his own pace and let Fuente go. Fuente crested the Sestriere climb with a 50-second lead on Merckx’s nine-man group. This was a slim lead, but Fuente and Galdós pressed on into the valley where they found themselves fighting a headwind. Still, they arrived at the base of the Jafferau climb with a lead of about one minute on Merckx, who had waited for help. Merckx’s group was now 28 men strong.

  Photo of Merckx on stage fourteen

  Once the climbing started, Galdós ran out of gas and Fuente was on his own. With four kilometers remaining of the ever-steepening climb he still had 1 minute 5 seconds. It wasn’t enough. Merckx was on fire and as Fuente cracked in the final kilometer, Merckx steamed right on by. Panizza, the last man to come off Merckx’s wheel, also went by the Spaniard.

  Fuente said he had given everything, but Merckx had twice his strength. Merckx replied that Fuente was even stronger than Luis Ocaña. High praise indeed, Ocaña being the only rider who really challenged Merckx in stage races when the Belgian was at his peak.

  Trusting that the Giro management would want to keep the stars in the race, several of the most famous riders blatantly hung onto cars or let themselves get pushed up the Jafferau. Their fame was an insufficient defense and Motta, Bitossi, Zilioli, Willy De Geest and Giovanni Varini were thrown out of the Giro. The day’s cheating was so widespread that most of the others still left in the race were given some form of penalty. The teams threatened to quit if the riders weren’t reinstated, but the race jury stood its ground and the teams stayed in.

  The denouement of the Giro was at hand. Stage sixteen took the riders over two hard passes, the Foscagno and the Eira. The day’s drama was supplied in a water bottle filled at a roadside stream by one of Merckx’s gregari. As the racers began the Foscagno, Merckx began to suffer abdominal pains, thought to have been caused by the unclean water in his bottle.

  Fuente attacked and was able to extract a slim lead that Merckx was able to erase on the descent. Merckx turned the day into another triumph when he came into Livigno 63 seconds ahead of the feisty Spaniard.

  The General Classification at this point: 1. Eddy Merckx

  2. José-Manuel Fuente @ 5 minutes 49 seconds

  3. Gösta Pettersson @ 5 minutes 52 seconds

  4. Vicente López-Carril @ 10 minutes 1 second

  The next day was the Giro’s Cima Coppi (a Giro’s highest point), the Stelvio. The ascent was to be up the famous northern, or Trafoi side. Twelve kilometers from the summit Fuente launched his second attack and not even Merckx could resist. Fuente ascended the Stelvio using a mind-boggling 54 x 18 gear. It’s said that only Coppi had been able to use such a huge gear on the Stelvio. Fuente nearly cooked himself, slowing near the top as he passed between walls of snow. He crossed the finish line at the top of the Stelvio 32 seconds ahead of his teammate Galdós and 2 minutes 5 seconds ahead of Merckx and Panizza. Merckx was still the Pink Jersey.

  That was it. Fuente had thrown everything he could at Merckx every time the road rose to the sky. It was never enough. There were still two stages with climbing, but the contest was over. Merckx won the penultimate stage, an 18-kilometer time trial, extending his final lead over Fuente to more than five minutes.

  While Torriani had been denied his dream of a Venetian prologue, he was finally granted another wish, a finish in front of Milan’s giant white gingerbread cathedral, won by Paolini.

  For the first time, the best-placed Italian rider was a lowly fifth. Merckx’s Molteni team was the only squad to finish intact. That made three Giro victories for Merckx.

  Final 1972 Giro d’Italia General Classification: 1. Eddy Merckx (Molteni) 103 hours 4 minutes 4 seconds

  2. José Manuel Fuente (KAS) @ 5 minutes 30 seconds

  3. Francisco Galdós (KAS) @ 10 minutes 39 seconds

  4. Vicente López-Carril (KAS) @ 11 minutes 17 seconds

  5. Wladimiro Panizza (Zonca) @ 13 minutes 0 seconds

  Climbers’ Competition: 1. José-Manuel Fuente (KAS): 490 points

  2. Eddy Merckx (Molteni): 350

  3. Francisco Galdós (KAS): 270

  Points Competition: 1. Roger de Vlaeminck (Dreher)

  2. Eddy Merckx (Molteni)

  3. Miguel-Maria Lasa (KAS)

  Showing how far cycling and the Giro had fallen, Italian television had dispensed entirely with live broadcasts of the Giro stages and was showing only highlights in the evening.

  1973. Today, upcoming Giro routes are usually announced in November or December. Back in 1973 things were not settled that early, with the route being announced in early March. The route Torriani designed was different from previous Giri, placing the start in Verviers, Belgium, and having the riders spend a week working their way south in a Giro of the Common Market, through Holland, Germany, Luxembourg, France and then Switzerland before landing in Piedmont, Italy. The Tour de France had, like the Giro, previously crossed into adjoining countries, but neither had scheduled such a far-ranging foreign adventure. The next year the Tour would have a single stage in Plymouth, England (a colossal failure) but would not venture wildly afield again until 1980 when it traveled deep into Germany.

  A blue-ribbon peloton arrived in Verviers. Merckx, coming from a win over Luis Ocaña in the Vuelta that had ended only five days earlier, was there with his team of champions to try for a fourth Giro win. Hoping to at last get the better of the relentless Belgian was the formidable Spanish KAS team, with Fuente, Galdós, Gonzalo Aja, José Pesarrodona, Domingo Perurena and Santiago Lazcano. Filling out the roster of contenders were Gimondi, Panizza, Motta (now on the Zonca squad and no longer teamed with Gimondi, who had moved to Bianchi), de Vlaeminck, Pettersson, Francesco Moser, Bitossi, Zilioli, Olympic Champion Hennie Kuiper and a new face, Giovanni Battaglin, winner of the 1972 Tour de l’Avenir.

  Torriani was never afraid to do things differently. Case in point, the 5.2-kilometer prologue was a two-man team time trial. In the 1972 Giro Merckx and his teammate Roger Swerts had shown that they were the best against the clock. As a team, they were, as expected, the winners. What wasn’t expected were Fuente and his teammate Pesarrodona being only seven seconds slower. The
prologue times didn’t count towards the General Classification, but the win gave Merckx the first Pink and Swerts the first Purple Jerseys.

  The next day the race finished in Cologne, Germany. Merckx, being Merckx, had no intention of giving up the maglia rosa. With twenty kilometers to go he put his men at the front of the pack and had them ride nearly all-out. From that platform he launched his own solo attack, but he couldn’t stay away and the peloton was together in the final kilometer. And despite all of that work, he still led out the sprint, and incredibly, won it by a clear margin.

  The stage into Luxembourg was ridden Giro-style, piano until the last 60 kilometers. But those final attacks were ferocious, with de Vlaeminck, Bitossi, Merckx and Panizza managing to get about a half-minute clear and finishing in that order.

  The fourth stage went through the Mont Blanc tunnel and brought the Giro into Italy at last. Over the Colle San Carlo, Fuente tried his best to escape, but with a long descent after the summit (for which Merckx changed bikes to have a machine with huge gears for the downhill), he couldn’t hope to stay away. There was a regrouping that allowed Merckx a third stage win.

  So far Merckx’s team had been tyrannically controlling the race, making sure that every break had a brown-clad Molteni rider in it.

  Stage six, going from Milan eastward to Iseo, went over the Colle San Fermo. Both Merckx and Fuente sent their lieutenants up ahead to prepare for the coming attacks. Not waiting for Fuente to jump, Merckx attacked hard and only Panizza and Battaglin could answer the call. At the worst possible time, Fuente was crippled with cramps and had to get off his bike.

  The Merckx trio had to dig deep, being pursued by a formidable group: Bitossi, Motta, Gimondi and former World Hour Record holder Ole Ritter. Try as they might, the group couldn’t hold off the chasers, allowing Gianni Motta to take the stage. The unfortunate Fuente lost twelve minutes.

  After stage six, with Fuente tossed and gored, the General Classification stood thus: 1. Eddy Merckx

  2. Franco Bitossi @ 29 seconds

  3. Wladimiro Panizza @ 37 seconds

  4. Giovanni Battaglin @ 51 seconds

  5. Ole Ritter @ 1 minute 6 seconds

  After a boring trip across the pancake-flat Emilian Plain, the race went into the hilly countryside of Le Marche. On one of the early climbs of the day, Merckx escaped bringing Fuente along for company. Foolishly, Fuente took his pulls with the powerful Belgian and after having burned his matches, was spit out the back.

  Next Battaglin bridged up to Merckx and as the two sped over the hills they distanced themselves from the peloton. Merckx tried to drop Battaglin, but wasn’t able to lose his young Italian companion until the top of the last climb. Merckx bombed down the hill and raced into Carpegna 45 seconds ahead of Battaglin and more than four minutes ahead of the first chaser, Zilioli.

  At the stage’s end Fuente was in such a bad state, he thought he needed a doctor. He was fine and the next morning was fit to start the next stage. Roger de Vlaeminck’s hopes for a high placing were ruined as well after he lost nine minutes. They weren’t the only ones losing big. Trying to cut down on the spectators’ pushing riders up the hills, large fines were imposed on the riders who accepted the fans’ help. The next day the threat of a riders’ strike over the severity of the punishments came to nothing.

  Stage ten took the race further down the Adriatic coast into Abruzzo where, at last, Fuente seemed to be finding his legs. He escaped, only to be caught by Merckx, who won the stage, his fifth stage victory so far. Putting on an extraordinary—I guess the better adjective would be Merckxian—show of aggression and power, he now held the lead in the General Classification as well as the points and mountains categories.

  A crash early in stage eleven allowed Merckx to form a break that included de Vlaeminck, Gimondi and Motta. Battaglin was at the back of the field when he was hit with both bad cramps and Merckx’s attack, and by the time he made his way up to the front, the big boys were gone. Battaglin got help from Hennie Kuiper and Francesco Moser (riding in his first Giro), but they had to concede three minutes, seeming to put the race out of the reach of everyone not named Merckx.

  The General Classification as the Giro reached its most southern point, Benevento, northeast of Naples: 1. Eddy Merckx

  2. Giovanni Battaglin @ 6 minutes 39 seconds

  3. Felice Gimondi @ 7 minutes 27 seconds

  4. Gianni Motta @ 7 minutes 56 seconds

  As the race turned north and rode through Umbria and Tuscany, the standings didn’t change significantly. At the Tuscan coastal city of Forte dei Marmi, for the first time in years, Merckx suffered a defeat in an individual time trial over 30 kilometers long. And the man who won the stage? Felice Gimondi beat the Belgian by 31 seconds. His superb ride moved him to second place, pushing Battaglin down to third at 9 minutes 34 seconds.

  The next day Michele Dancelli was expelled from the race for using “intemperate language” on the race jury after the stage eight fines were imposed.

  Two Dolomite stages were next. Stage eighteen, from Verona to Andalo went over the Bondone and the Paganella. The previous day it had rained hard on the miserable, huddled peloton and the prospect of a cold, snowy day on the Bondone scared both the riders and the organizers. But the sun came out and so did Merckx’s Moltenis. Just as most of the riders were picking up their feedbags and the Bondone started to bite, Merckx’s team gave it the gas, forcing many of the riders to forgo their musettes. The Spaniards, not expecting the attack, were already off the back before the hard work was expected to begin.

  With a huge effort Fuente bridged up to the leaders. Upon making contact he attacked, and this drew out a select group of riders as they climbed the steepest part of the 27-kilometer ascent: Merckx, Fuente, Gimondi, Moser, de Vlaeminck and Lazcano. The last ten kilometers of the Bondone pass were unpaved and here Lazcano galloped away, taking Fuente with him. They crested with less than a minute’s lead, and of course they were caught in a general regrouping on the descent.

  On the far milder Paganella, Fuente attacked again, but his efforts on the Bondone climb had left him without punch. Now it was Merckx’s time to go clear, Gimondi and Battaglin being the only riders able to keep him in sight. Merckx held on to a 46-second gap all the way into Andalo with Gimondi and Battaglin second and third. Fuente came in sixth, 3 minutes 30 seconds down.

  The penultimate day had four major climbs: the Valles, Santa Lucia, the Giau (the Cima Coppi) and the Tre Croci. On the Passo Valles, Fuente jumped several times before getting clear. Still alone after the Santa Lucia, he tackled the Giau while Merckx was content to go at his own speed, topping the Giau with Battaglin for company, 2 minutes 25 seconds behind Fuente.

  At the start of the Passo Tre Croci, Fuente’s lead was two minutes. Moser and Ritter had tried to get up to Fuente but the Spaniard was on song and increased the gap on his chasers to 2 minutes 45 seconds. There were 24 kilometers of mostly downhill to go and one might expect two superb big-gear men like Moser and Ritter would be able to reel in a small, exhausted climber. They couldn’t. Fuente pulled off one of the great rides, being away for more than 130 kilometers and finishing 1 minute 6 seconds ahead of Moser, allowing Fuente to take the Mountains Classification lead away from Merckx.

  Having suffocated his competition, Merckx had a commanding lead in the General Classification. The points and mountains classifications, however were still not completely settled as the Giro started the final stage into Trieste. Fuente scooted over the Passo della Mauria first and secured the mountain prize. De Vlaeminck made an attempt to win the stage and take the points prize from Merckx, but he was swamped when the Bianchi squad positioned world champion Marino Basso perfectly for the sprint.

  Merckx now had four Giro wins. In winning the 1973 edition he did what no man had done since Alfredo Binda in 1927, taking the lead on the first stage and keeping it until the end. Moreover, along t
he way to winning his “sunrise to sunset” Giro he won six stages. It was a scintillating performance.

  Final 1973 Giro d’Italia General Classification: 1. Eddy Merckx (Molteni) 106 hours 54 minutes 41 seconds

  2. Felice Gimondi (Bianchi) @ 7 minutes 42 seconds

  3. Giovanni Battaglin (Jolliceramica) @ 10 minutes 20 seconds

  4. José Pesarrodona (KAS) @ 15 minutes 51 seconds

  8. José-Manuel Fuente (KAS) @ 26 minutes 6 seconds

  Climbers’ Competition: 1. José-Manuel Fuente (KAS): 550 points

  2. Eddy Merckx (Molteni): 510

  3. Giovanni Battaglin (Jolliceramica): 180

  Points Competition: 1. Eddy Merckx (Molteni): 237 points

  2. Roger de Vlaeminck (Brooklyn): 216

  3. Felice Gimondi (Bianchi): 146

  1974. The Italian economic miracle of the 1950s and 1960s was uneven, leaving most Italians dissatisfied with many aspects of how Italian government and society in general were ordered. The causes for the unease were many and there was a wide-spread belief that communist, specifically Maoist, thought held the solution to Italy’s problems. As in much of the western world, student demonstrations in the late 1960s shook Italy badly. In most countries, left-wing unrest had calmed down by the early 1970s, but in Italy the demonstrations signaled more than just youthful anger. While Italy produced consumer goods in abundance, wages to buy these beautiful items remained low. Truly fearing revolution, industrialists and the government raised wages and gave workers more power. This real improvement in the Italian standard of living that took place over the next eight years left most of the Italian population reasonably content with their personal situation, even if still contemptuous of their government. But the most militant of the left didn’t want the populace to be satisfied with televisions and cars, they wanted a revolution, and through the 1970s they escalated their efforts. By 1974 over a hundred separate groups were engaged in murderous acts of terrorism against judges, police, journalists and industrialists, causing a severe reaction within and without the government. Right-wing groups with ties to the military and police formed and, trying to cause a public reaction against the leftists, bombed and murdered as well. Former prime minister Aldo Moro’s 1978 kidnapping and murder generated a sweeping clamp-down on the revolutionaries and by the early 1980s, violence for the most part was suppressed.