The Story of the Giro d'Italia

by Carol McGann

  Tonkov won the three-up sprint, but with only the final ride into Milan remaining, the Giro was Gotti’s.

  Final 1997 Giro d’Italia General Classification: 1. Ivan Gotti (Saeco): 102 hours 53 minutes 58 seconds

  2. Pavel Tonkov (Mapei-GB) @ 1 minute 27 seconds

  3. Giuseppe Guerini (Polti) @ 7 minutes 40 seconds

  4. Nicola Miceli (Aki-Safi) @ 12 minutes 20 seconds

  5. Serguei Gontchar (Aki-Safi) @ 12 minutes 44 seconds

  Climbers’ Competition: 1. José Jaime González (Kelme-Costa Blanca): 99 points

  2. Mariano Piccoli (Brescialat): 35

  3. Roberto Conti (Mercatone Uno): 28

  Points Competition:

  1. Mario Cipollini (Saeco): 202 points

  2. Dimitri Konyshev (Roslotto-ZG Mobili): 146

  3. Glenn Magnusson (Amore & Vita): 145

  Pantani restarted his season at the Tour of Switzerland, which he abandoned. His Tour de France was a triumph for a man who was a shattered wreck little more than a year before. He came in third to Jan Ullrich, whom many thought would go on winning Grand Tours for a decade, and Richard Virenque, who soon would be at the center of cycling’s greatest doping scandal. Pantani’s Tour was particularly memorable because of his two spectacular mountain stage wins. By now Pantani had taken on the persona associated with his best years; he shaved his head and took to wearing a bandanna. He had become Il Pirata.

  Chapter 5

  1998–2003: The Rise and Fall of Marco Pantani

  1998. There seemed to be a consensus among a wide range of racers, managers and writers as to who was most likely to win the 1998 Giro. Alex Zülle, who had left the Spanish ONCE squad for the powerful Festina team, was the man to beat. He was an outstanding time trialist and the 80 kilometers of racing against the clock in the 1998 Giro certainly played to his strength. Gotti thought Zülle had a built-in four-minute advantage over the climbers that would have to be overcome in the high mountains. Easier said than done, because Zülle was also an excellent climber and capable Grand Tour rider, having won the 1996 and ’97 Vueltas. Others proposed the last two winners, Gotti and Tonkov. Only a couple of experts thought Marco Pantani could prevail on what was said to be a time trialist’s parcours.

  Zülle certainly lived up to expectations when he won the 7-kilometer prologue on a rainy day in Nice (the sixth time the Giro had started in a foreign country). The Swiss rider had the maglia rosa by 1 second over Serguei Gontchar.

  The first stage returned the Giro to its home country with what was expected to be a sprint finish in Cuneo. Cipollini’s lead-out train was late getting organized and two of his Saeco teammates went down as the peloton wound its way around the traffic circles. The loss of momentum was perfect for a clever and strong opportunist to try to slip away in the last kilometer. Mariano Piccoli’s burglary in plain sight was perfectly executed. Piccoli got the stage while Zülle remained the leader.

  Going from Cuneo to Imperia on the Italian Riviera with the Capo Berta ascent coming just five kilometers from the end, stage two’s racing said this Giro was going to be a fight from the very beginning. Before the Capo Berta started to rise, Pantani sent his entire team to the front to bring up the pace. As the road rose, Paolo Bettini leaped out of the field with Pantani hot on his tail. Soon Michele Bartoli clawed his way to the duo. Bettini couldn’t take his fellow escapees’ supersonic speed and sat up, but Bartoli and Pantani screamed up the hill. Back in the pack, this was a four-alarm fire and the peloton strung itself out over the hill, desperate to retrieve the two gifted racers. Near the summit the catch was made and Zülle’s lead was preserved.

  The next day Zülle lost the Pink Jersey when he was caught behind a crash (not unusual for Zülle) near the finish, giving the Pink Jersey to Serguei Gontchar.

  Again Bartoli and Pantani slapped the field around a bit. The last six kilometers of the fourth stage had a rugged sawtooth profile where Bartoli tried to get away. He was instantly marked by Pantani and Enrico Zaina. This trio could not be allowed any freedom and were painfully pulled back. Both Pantani and Bartoli were racing the Giro as if each day were a one-day Classic, not worrying about saving energy for later. After the big guns were caught, Nicola Miceli took advantage of that moment of relaxation that almost always occurs after breaks are caught and scooted off for the stage win. Bartoli, having a seemingly endless well of energy, took second, and with the attendant time bonus was 1 second short of becoming the Giro’s leader.

  Still headed south, the Giro had passed through Tuscany and was now rolling by Rome to the stage five finish in Frascati. At ten kilometers to go it looked like a typical Saeco lead-out-train finish with nearly all of Cipollini’s team at the front, but by the final kilometer he had only one teammate left. It didn’t matter. Cipollini led the sprint out himself, riding the final 200 meters on the brake levers with no one able to come around the powerful Tuscan. Bartoli had managed to gain some bonus seconds in the intermediate sprints and was now the Pink Jersey.

  As the Giro rolled into Campania with its stage six finish at Lago Laceno, three rated climbs confronted the riders. Things were still together by the time they reached the final hill, the Valico Villagio-Laceno, with its short stretch of 21-percent gradient. When the peloton reached that steep part, Bartoli did a sharp attack that caught Pantani’s attention. Pantani closed up to Bartoli and not being content with Bartoli’s speed, ratcheted up the pace. Alert to the danger, Gotti and several others moved up to Pantani. He looked back and went still faster and then he was gone. Or was he? This day Pantani didn’t appear to have his normal sharp climbing snap and first Bartoli went after him and was able to keep the small climber in sight. Then Luc Leblanc and finally Zülle were able to latch onto Bartoli.

  Zülle lit the jets, gunning for and catching Pantani, but he wasn’t content. He put in another dig and Pantani was able to stay with him for a few hundred meters, but Zülle was on fire. Even Pantani couldn’t hold his wheel that day and he went over the crest of the hill eight seconds behind the Swiss superman. The final three kilometers were on flat road, happy hunting grounds for one of the world’s foremost time trialists. Zülle extended his lead, won the stage and retook the maglia rosa. Bartoli, Leblanc and Pantani followed in 24 seconds later.

  The General Classification now: 1. Alex Zülle

  2. Michele Bartoli @ 13 seconds

  3. Luc Leblanc @ 50 seconds

  4. Pavel Tonkov @ 56 seconds

  5. Paolo Savoldelli @ 57 seconds

  6. Marco Pantani @ 1 minute 2 seconds

  By the stage eight finish in Lecce, the 1998 Giro’s southernmost point, the General Classification hadn’t changed. The race turned north and headed for the Dolomites and the Alps. The route followed the Adriatic shoreline, making flat stages for the sprinters. Cipollini’s win in Macerata in Le Marche was his 25th, tying Eddy Merckx’s postwar Giro stage-win record. Although Bartoli had managed to take a few bonus seconds in sprints, there was still no change to the General Classification.

  Stage eleven’s climb to San Marino was the real start of the Giro. At the sign of the day’s first gradient, José “Chepe” González decided to go for a long, lonesome ride. Andrea Noè initially spoiled his plans, but González was able to temporarily drop the Italian.

  Back in the peloton, Pantani’s Mercatone Uno team massed at the front. San Marino was Mercatone Uno’s hometown, giving the team extra motivation for a stage win. As the road got ever steeper, Pantani attacked again and again. His relentless accelerations kept thinning the herd but there were tenacious contenders who were determined to stay with the Pirate. Up ahead, González had run out of gas. Noè, who was unhappy with the little Colombian’s refusal to work with him, steamed right on by.

  Tenacity wasn’t enough. With a kilometer to go Pantani was able to get away from his followers and had Noè in his sights, but at t
he end of the stage still lacked 7 seconds to catch the fleeing Italian.

  The General Classification: 1. Alex Zülle

  2. Michele Bartoli @ 5 seconds

  3. Luc Leblanc @ 50 seconds

  4. Marco Pantani @ 51 seconds

  5. Pavel Tonkov @ 52 seconds

  The next stage, coming down from San Marino, was on a wet, sloppy day, perfect for letting a break of non-threatening riders get away. Laurent Roux, the best placed of the fuga di bidone, lifted himself into pink.

  The Giro had departed from the warmth of southern Italy. Stage thirteen was cold and wet. To warm them a bit, the riders were to cross the 650-meter-high Passo dello Zovo, which crested a few kilometers before the finish. After two weeks of racing, Pantani’s form had markedly improved and the new, improved Pirate bludgeoned the pack, landing blow after blow until they had to let him go. Zülle got up to him as did Bartoli, and at the top it was Pantani, Zülle and Tonkov.

  On the descent Pantani flew down the wet roads fearlessly. On one curve he pushed his bike too hard and went sliding across the road, taking Zülle with him. In a flash they were both up, but not before a few riders had passed them. Zülle, a powerful but somewhat unskilled and crash-prone bike handler, almost went off the road at least one more time as did Tonkov. The Russian, not wanting to trade his skin for a few seconds, let Bartoli and several others go on ahead. At the bottom of the hill a group of four coalesced: Bartoli, Bettini, Giuseppe Guerini and Andrea Noè. Bartoli grabbed the stage win and the 12 precious bonus seconds. Pantani’s group came in 16 seconds later and Zülle’s was about another 6 seconds behind them. Noè was back in pink, Bartoli was second and Zülle had lost some valuable time to Pantani, who was turning out to be a relentlessly aggressive foe.

  Now for the real mountains. Stage fourteen was a 165-kilometer trip to a finish atop Piancavallo, a nearly 1,300-meter-high, fifteen-kilometer long climb. Early on the ascent, the only one this stage, Bartoli took a long, out of the saddle, big-gear pull. That strung things out. He looked around for his teammate Andrea Noè and saw that Noè couldn’t follow the pace, so he shut it down.

  That didn’t slow things down a bit, because just as Bartoli was looking around, he was swallowed up by Pantani’s teammates, especially Stefano Garzelli, who initiated what looked like a ruinous pace. Zülle and Tonkov, knowing that Pantani was setting things up for a hammer blow, stayed glued to his wheel.

  After each of his gregari had taken his last pull, Pantani took wing and only Tonkov, as usual with misery written all over his face, was able to hold his wheel. Soon even Tonkov had to let the Pirate go. Further back Zülle was now matching Pantani’s speed. Noè, looking ghastly, was gone and Ivan Gotti, the previous year’s winner, was quickly shown the back door.

  Gotti said he had been unable to find any sort of competitive form this year and was completely out of contention after only a couple of kilometers of climbing.

  Pantani was back! He won his first Giro stage in four years. Tonkov led in Zülle only 13 seconds later. Pantani wasn’t in pink but he did get the green Climber’s Jersey. Before the 40-kilometer individual time trial in Trieste, the General Classification stood thus:

  1. Alex Zülle

  2. Marco Pantani @ 22 seconds

  3. Pavel Tonkov @ 40 seconds

  4. Giuseppe Guerini @ 57 seconds

  5. Andrea Noè @ 1 minute 5 seconds

  Zülle answered a question that cyclists debated in the early 1970s. Do you push big gears or spin little gears? Zülle’s time trial gave the answer. Spin big gears. On the long slightly downhill section followed by a flat road, he churned a gigantic 56 x 11, setting what was then a Giro time trial record of 53.77 kilometers per hour. At the halfway point he surged past Pantani, his 2-minute man. Zülle had now increased his lead to 2 minutes 2 seconds over Tonkov and Pantani was now in third at 3 minutes 48 seconds.

  Stage seventeen, 215 kilometers going from Asiago to Selva Val Gardena, was il tappone. The riders had to cross the Duran, Staulanza, Marmolada and Sella (1998’s Cima Coppi), all crammed into the final 100 kilometers. The contenders had taken it easy in stage sixteen, their legs sore from the time trial. Now there could be no relaxation, all knew that a hungry Pantani would be seeking the lead on these difficult passes in the high Dolomites.

  The classification riders made it to the Marmolada together. It was Tonkov who threw down the gauntlet on the long and relentless ascent and it was Pantani who accepted the challenge. Guerini made it up to the duo but under this terrible pressure, Zülle folded.

  Tonkov had brought a knife to a gunfight and had to let the pair go. Now it was just Pantani smoothly climbing in the saddle with Guerini stuck to his rear wheel. Bartoli, who had raced as if each stage were the last, was paying the price for his earlier efforts and was near the back of the peloton.

  Pantani and Guerini went over the top of the Marmolada with Tonkov about a minute back. From then on Guerini and Pantani worked together, scorching the descent, and in the valley before the Passo Sella they picked up a few earlier breakaways. On the final climb, the pickups were dropped and the two riders continued to increase their advantage with every pedal stroke. Guerini was allowed the stage win and Pantani was the maglia rosa. Underlining his complete collapse, Bartoli failed to make the time cutoff and was eliminated.

  The new General Classification: 1. Marco Pantani

  2. Pavel Tonkov @ 30 seconds

  3. Giuseppe Guerini @ 31 seconds

  4. Alex Zülle @ 1 minute 1 second

  There were still two more challenging mountain stages remaining as well as a 34-kilometer time trial on the penultimate stage. Could Pantani accrue a large enough lead to withstand another race against the clock?

  Stage eighteen had three major rated climbs that were stacked up in the final 45 kilometers, including a hilltop finish at Alpe di Pampeago. This certainly played to the Pirate’s advantage. There were seven of the best left on the final climb. Pantani slowly, without any noticeable jump, upped the pace. Tonkov held on, but behind him the string broke. The two were gone and as the gradient went from fourteen percent to over twenty, Pantani was not looking nearly as formidable as he had earlier. Tonkov, sensing the weakness, led over the final kilometer and won the sprint. Zülle lost almost a minute, making his job of reclaiming the race in the time trial more difficult. Pantani still led Tonkov by 27 seconds and Zülle was still in fourth, but 2 minutes 8 seconds back.

  The final mountain stage had two major ascents before a hilltop finish, this time at Plan di Montecampione. It was one mountain stage too many for Zülle, who suffered a défaillance. At the top of the Cadino, the penultimate climb, he was almost eight minutes behind the leaders.

  Photo of Pantani

  If anyone thought Pantani was running out of gas in this third week, he had an answer. As his gregario Podenzana was killing himself keeping the speed high (successfully: most of the peloton was well back down the road) Pantani erupted out from behind his wheel with an astonishing acceleration. Just as astonishing, Tonkov was on him like stink on poo. With the time trial looming, Pantani needed more time and Tonkov was in no mood to give it to him.

  With about fifteen kilometers to go, Pantani slowed a bit and asked Tonkov to pull through. “Nothing doing”, seemed to be the reply. Further up the hill Pantani again motioned Tonkov to come through and this time he did. The two riders seemed to be almost perfectly matched. As the final three kilometers stiffened to over ten percent Pantani tried to get away again, his last chance to win the Giro. He’d already tossed aside his sunglasses and bandanna, now he removed the diamond stud from his nose, threw it away, and then rising out of the saddle, he lashed his bike with another brutal acceleration and this time Tonkov couldn’t take it. Slowly the gap grew and Pantani, hands on the drops and out of the saddle, gave it full gas. The gradient increased to 23 percent and Pantani kept up the pressure. Tonkov lo
oked at last to have been broken. He had been forced to dig too deep one time too many. At the line Pantani had gained 57 seconds. Zülle lost a half-hour.

  Zülle’s soigneur Willy Voet thought the Swiss racer’s collapse was the needless result of incompetent doping. He wrote that Zülle had been brought along carefully with growth hormone and then a treatment of corticosteroids, and I assume also EPO, which his Festina team had become adept at using. Although Zülle was in superb condition for the start of the Giro, he saw how teammate Laurent Dufaux had overpowered the competition in the Tour of Romandie and asked for the same heavy dose of cortisone Dufaux had received. Voet was against it, thinking he had his Formula One engine perfectly tuned. So, according to Voet, Zülle turned to another soigneur on the team who injected him with “massive doses of corticosteroids”. Voet said that the “cortico” devoured the muscle that had been so carefully built up and after about ten days of racing in which Zülle was the strongest rider in the Giro peloton, he started falling apart.

  The new General Classification: 1. Marco Pantani

  2. Pavel Tonkov @ 1 minute 28 seconds

  3. Giuseppe Guerini @ 5 minutes 11 seconds

  With the final 34-kilometer time trial left, it was a race between Tonkov and Pantani. In the stage fifteen time trial Tonkov, a fine time trialist, had beaten Pantani by 2 minutes 4 seconds, or about three seconds per kilometer. Those three seconds per kilometer were roughly the amount of time Tonkov would need to take from Pantani this day in order to be the Giro winner. On paper the race was a dead heat.