The Story of the Giro d'Italia

by Carol McGann

  Liquigas performed so well in the rainy stage that when they were done the General Classification podium was all Liquigas. Vincenzo Nibali was the new maglia rosa and Basso was second at 13 seconds. Battered by Vinokourov’s desperate pulls at the front, the Astana team fell apart in the last kilometers, costing the Kazakh precious seconds.

  Liquigas riders were in the pole position while Vinokourov was down 33 seconds, Evans at 1 minute 59 seconds and Carlos Sastre a further 14 seconds behind. That was Wednesday. The next two days would be for the sprinters and breakaway artists with Saturday having the potential to turn the race upside down when the race went over the strade bianche of Chianti country.

  And turn it upside down it did. Through the winds, fog, rain and eventually mud, the riders blitzed away at full gas, covering 52.5 kilometers the first hour. As the stage progressed, Vinokourov kept the pressure on the pack. The pivotal moment came about 30 kilometers before the end when nearly the entire Liquigas team crashed. Just as the maglia rosa and his team were hitting the deck, the German Milram squad was starting to up the pace. Vinokourov threw more gas on the fire and the riders started to come unglued. The rain turned the final kilometers on dirt roads into a muddy agony that brought the best bike handlers to the front. Climbing to the finish line at Montalcino were Evans, Cunego, Vinokourov and David Arroyo. Evans muscled his way to the front and led out the sprint, which he won.

  Photo of Vinokourov

  Most of the shattered peloton started coming in a minute later. Nibali lost two minutes. After the long (222 kilometers) cold, wet ride, many riders were glassy-eyed with exhaustion.

  Vinokourov’s payoff for his hyper-aggression was the Pink Jersey while Evans moved into second place, 1 minute 12 seconds behind.

  Stage eight drove the riders south from Chianciano Terme in Umbria to a foggy hilltop finish at Terminillo which left the times between the contenders relatively unchanged.

  After stage eight the General Classification stood thus: 1. Alexandre Vinokourov

  2. Cadel Evans @ 1 minute 12 seconds

  3. Vincenzo Nibali @ 1 minute 33 seconds

  4. Ivan Basso @ 1 minute 51 seconds

  5. Marco Pinotti @ 2 minutes 17 seconds

  At 262 kilometers, stage eleven was the year’s longest. Everyone knew the Apennine stage was going to be filled with aggression and so it was. From the gun, the attacks came and after only twenty kilometers a big 54-man group forged a gap. The group was potent with Bradley Wiggins and several members of his Sky team, Carlos Sastre, David Arroyo with four of his team along and Richie Porte and two of his Saxo squad. What probably affected the days racing most was that Liquigas, the Giro’s strongest team, had four in the break including two well-placed riders, Valerio Agnoli and Robert Kiserlovski.

  Vinokourov, Evans, Nibali and Basso all missed the move. The fast moving break, whose members had plenty of reason to cooperate, built a seventeen-minute lead. Liquigas played poker and waited for Vinokourov’s Astana and Evans’ BMC team to take up the chase. They couldn’t or wouldn’t. Most of the Astana riders were ill (three had to drop out of the race at the end of the day) and Evans’ team didn’t have the horsepower to chase down a break like this. Eventually Liquigas aided the chase which had Garzelli, Vinokourov, Evans and Basso also pulling the pack.

  The fuga di bidone rolled into L’Aquila with almost thirteen minutes in hand. Both Wiggins and Sastre had earlier suffered what seemed to be time losses large enough to eliminate them from contention, but after stage eleven their hopes had new life. Neo-pro Richie Porte was the new leader with journeyman David Arroyo second at 1 minute 42 seconds. Vinokourov and Evans were down ten and eleven minutes respectively.

  As soon as the riders were off their bikes the angry finger pointing began. Liquigas director Roberto Amadio had miscalculated badly. Cunego lamented that he didn’t learn about the break and its potential to wreck havoc until it was too late.

  Stage eleven was so difficult that 41 riders finished after the time cutoff of 39 minutes and had to get special dispensation to continue racing. At that time the points leader was American Tyler Farrar. He was among the day’s late arrivals and, following a newly instituted rule, was handed a 25-point penalty, giving the points lead to Frenchman Jérôme Pineau. The rule was intended to keep sprinters from riding slowly in the mountains and keeping their prizes even after the judges had shown special mercy to those who would otherwise be eliminated.

  Locking the barn door after the horses had bolted, vigilance was the order of the day in stage twelve. Vinokourov even made a play for the stage win and the bonus seconds, but Italian Champion Filippo Pozzato won. Pozzato’s victory, the first individual stage win of the year by an Italian, ended an embarrassing episode for Italian racing. Never had Italy had to wait so long for one of her countrymen to win a Giro stage. Until 2010, the longest Italian winless drought was in 1973 when Gianni Motta finally won stage six.

  The showdown in the Dolomites began that Saturday with stage fourteen. It was a flattish run-in to the Monte Grappa ascent with a technical descent before the finish in Asolo. Liquigas had promised to make the day hard for everyone else and they lived up to their words. From the beginnings of the Grappa ascent, Liquigas riders set a fiendish pace. The result was a quartet of Basso, Nibali, Evans and Michele Scarponi cresting the top with Vinokourov slightly gapped.

  Nibali, one of the finest descenders in professional cycling, schooled the others in how to push the limits of tire adhesion and took the stage. Porte was a casualty of the Liquigas set-piece and Arroyo was the new maglia rosa.

  For the next stage Zomegnan had put on his Sunday-best. He started with three leg-softening passes: the Chianzutan, Duran and Valcalda followed by a finish atop Monte Zoncolan.

  Liquigas repeated the process. They blasted away at the bottom of Monte Zoncolan and quickly battered the peloton into little pieces. Scarponi made a blistering attack and it was over for everyone but Evans and Basso. Basso did the pacesetting, spinning a low gear and riding faster than Evans could go.

  Basso, who had been riding as almost a gregario di lusso for Nibali, now asserted his leadership of the team, cruising into Asolo 1 minute 19 seconds ahead of Evans and 2 minutes 26 seconds in front of Vinokourov. Arroyo raced up the mountain fast enough to retain his lead, but it was looking like he was renting the Pink Jersey from Basso.

  After Monte Zoncolan the General Classification looked like this: 1. David Arroyo

  2. Richie Porte @ 2 minutes 35 seconds

  3. Ivan Basso @ 3 minutes 33 seconds

  4. Carlos Sastre @ 4 minutes 21 seconds

  5. Cadel Evans @ 4 minutes 43 seconds

  6. Alexandre Vinokourov @ 5 minutes 51 seconds

  After the second rest day the riders faced the cronoscalata (timed hill-climb) up to the Plan de Corones. Stage winner Stefano Garzelli used a tiny 34 x 29 gear. Since he was a half-hour behind in the General Classification standings, Garzelli’s win had no effect upon the race, But Evan’s second place did. He was able to pull 28 seconds closer to Basso and 94 seconds nearer to Arroyo. Instead of blowing up the race, the steep hill-climb tightened things still further:

  1. David Arroyo

  2. Ivan Basso @ 2 minutes 27 seconds

  3. Richie Porte @ 2 minutes 36 seconds

  4. Cadel Evans @ 3 minutes 9 seconds

  Friday’s stage nineteen was the penultimate day of hard mountain racing with a climb to Aprica then a loop to take in the Trivigno and Mortirolo passes before a return to Aprica for a hilltop finish.

  Basso used his Liquigas team to soften the peloton’s legs and on the Mortirolo, Basso set a pace that only Scarponi and teammate Nibali could match. The three stayed clear on the wet, dangerous technical descent of the Mortirolo (Nibali and Scarponi had to wait for the slow-descending Basso) while the others tried to form an effective chase. Trying to get up to the trio, A
rroyo descended with suicidal desperation, but they were too far up the road. Arroyo, Evans, Vinokourov, Carlos Sastre and John Gadret were clearly shattered and unable to mount an effective, united chase. As Basso pulled the others up the final climb to Aprica, he extended his lead over the Evans group until it was 3 minutes 5 seconds.

  Scarponi won the stage but Basso was in pink with Arroyo at 51 seconds. At four minutes, Evans looked to have little chance against Basso.

  Bad weather threatened the planned final mountain stage with a Gavia Pass crossing, but as the sun rose on Saturday it was announced that the Gavia, the year’s Cima Coppi, would be ascended from the easier north side on the way to a hill-top finish at the top of the Tonale.

  Gilberto Simoni was riding his last Giro, and looking to go out in a blaze of glory, broke away on the Gavia with Swiss rider Johann Tschopp. Tschopp was unsentimental and dropped Simoni near the Gavia’s top and continued on to a solo stage victory.

  Near the end of the final ascent Evans managed to rip himself clear of Basso, but only by nine seconds. Scarponi stayed with Basso and gained time on Nibali. With the final time trial in Verona the sole remaining stage, a single second separated Nibali and Scarponi:

  1. Ivan Basso

  2. David Arroyo @ 1 minute 15 seconds

  3. Vincenzo Nibali @ 2 minutes 56 seconds

  4. Michele Scarponi @ 2 minutes 57 seconds

  5. Cadel Evans @ 3 minutes 47 seconds

  The 15-kilometer time trial in Verona was too short to change the standings, but Evans was able to gain 20 seconds and Nibali predictably out-rode Scarponi.

  Final 2010 Giro d’Italia General Classification: 1. Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Doimo) 87 hours 44 minutes 1 second

  2. David Arroyo (Caisse d’Epargne) @ 1 minute 51 seconds

  3. Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Doimo) @ 2 minutes 37 seconds

  4. Michele Scarponi (Androni Giocatolli-Diquigiovanni) @ 2 minutes 50 seconds

  5. Cadel Evans (BMC) @ 3 minutes 27 seconds

  Climbers’ Competition: 1. Matthew Lloyd (Omega Pharma-Lotto): 56 points

  2. Ivan Basso (Liquigas): 41

  3. Johann Tschopp (Bouygues Telecom): 38

  Points Competition (now a red jersey): 1. Cadel Evans (BMC): 150 points

  2. Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana): 128

  3. Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas): 116

  Stung by accusations of incompetence in ferreting out dopers, UCI boss Pat McQuaid announced there had been a change in how the racers’ blood values evolved during this Giro and that hemoglobin levels in the riders’ blood were going down over the three weeks of the race, as they should, indicative to him of fewer blood transfusions.

  At 39.707 kilometer per hour, this was by far the fastest Giro in history, beating the previous record, 2003’s extraordinary 38.928. The changing nature of the Giro might explain why the race was so fast. The rising importance of the Giro coupled with its more international peloton has meant an end to the piano days of yore. Damiano Cunego said the race is far harder than it was when he won in 2004 and that even though his power numbers were as good as they have ever been, he said another Giro win for him was out of the question.

  Professional coach Hunter Allen did an analysis of power outputs of one of his clients who rode both the Giro and the Tour and found that there was no question that the Giro was the harder of the two races.

  2011. To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Italy’s unification, the 2011 Giro route started in Turin, Italy’s first capital. With even more climbing than the last few editions, Alberto Contador expected the 2011 Giro to be the hardest Grand Tour he had ever ridden. Contador had more problems than just steep mountains. After being found positive for the banned drug Clenbuterol in the 2010 Tour de France, he was exonerated by the Spanish cycling federation and cleared to race. The federation had come under intense political pressure from all corners of Spain, even from the Spanish Premier, to accept Contador’s explanation that he had eaten a contaminated piece of beef. Unhappy with the Spanish Federation’s ruling, the UCI filed an appeal with the Court for Arbitration of Sport, which put off a final decision until 2012.

  Initially planning to ride a low-key Giro in support of teammate Vincenzo Nibali before going on to his major objective, the Tour, Basso was having trouble finding good form and felt that riding both races was beyond him and pulled out of the Giro.

  There were still plenty of good riders starting, given the Giro had been granted an exemption from the UCI’s 200-rider limit. Zomegnan invited 23 teams of nine for a total of 207, using his five wild cards to bring in five smaller teams with strong Italian connections. The startlist included four former winners: Garzelli, Di Luca, Contador and Menchov. Nibali’s name was on everyone’s lips as the rider most likely to give Contador trouble.

  And again, there was another doping scandal, this time centered in Mantua, with what appeared to be convincing evidence that some riders from the Lampre, BMC and Movistar teams had taken EPO, testosterone, corticoids, human growth hormone and engaged in blood doping. Former world champion Alessandro Ballan and hard-guy Marzio Bruseghin were pulled from their teams’ startlists and at the Giro’s start, another 30 people were waiting to hear if the Italian prosecutor would bring them to trial.

  Decades after it should have, the UCI finally adopted a rule prohibiting the injections of medicines or any other substances without a clear-cut medical necessity. Even the possession of items that could be used in injections created the presumption of guilt under the new rule. There being no power granted to any official organization for searches, the rule was toothless.

  It was time to race. Starting at Venaria Reale near Turin, one of the royal palaces of the House of Savoy (the first rulers of unified Italy), the day’s route was 19.3 flat kilometers of team time trialing into Turin. Well-drilled HTC-Highroad beat Radio Shack by 10 seconds, and according to plan, 35-year-old Marco Pinotti was given the job of leading the team across the finish line, thereby earning him the year’s first maglia rosa. Contador’s Saxo squad gave up 30 seconds while Menchov’s Geox and Garzelli’s Acqua & Sapone teams lost about a minute.

  The events of stage three, with its successful break giving David Millar the lead, cast a pall over what was looking to be a sparkling Giro. With about 40 kilometers to go, Belgian Wouter Weylandt crashed horribly while descending the technical Passo del Bocco. Paramedics were unable to revive the racer who was airlifted to a hospital and pronounced dead before the stage was over. The riders weren’t told about the tragedy until the stage’s finish.

  The next day’s stage was neutralized with Weylandt’s team, Leopard-Trek, crossing the finish line together. That evening the team announced its withdrawal from the race.

  2010’s trip across Tuscany’s strade bianche had been a rousing success, creating a brutal day of exciting, selective racing. Not one to miss a chance to spice up the competition, Zomegnan included nineteen kilometers of white roads in stage five’s hilly trip across Tuscany into Umbria, finishing it off with a trip up the stiff climb to Orvieto. It worked. Swiss rider Martin Kohler stormed away from the peloton when the stage was only twelve kilometers old and managed to build a gap that at one point grew to nearly thirteen minutes. With twenty kilometers to go, Pieter Weening and John Gadret raced after the Swiss buccaneer, catching him ten kilometers later. Weening still had lots in the tank and shortly after making contact with Kohler, went off in his own search of glory. It was a close thing. When he crossed the line with both arms in the air, the pack was only 8 seconds behind. Maglia rosa Millar had a dreadful day, crashing and suffering from allergies. He lost nearly three minutes and the Pink Jersey, which migrated to Weening.

  Several riders complained about the strade bianche, a not uncommon occurrence when Grand Tour organizers add anything beyond glass-smooth pavement to a race route. Zomegnan answered Di Luca’s complaint by recalling
the wonderful ride Di Luca had on the unpaved Colle delle Finestre in the 2005 Giro, “Maybe that was a long time ago for him, I don’t know.” Zomegnan understood that his customers were the tifosi, who had plenty of other forms of entertainment if the Giro were insufficiently enthralling, while the racers, with their fruit-fly short careers, care little for the long-term health of the sport. Otherwise they would never have fought so bitterly against dope-testing and in favor of race radios (by which team directors control their riders and deaden racing’s spontaneity).

  Stage seven’s finish atop Montevergine di Mercogliano wasn’t steep enough to create a selection. In fact, all the contenders along with Weening, finished in the front group that came millimeters from catching lone escapee and stage winner Bart de Clercq.

  But stage nine’s two ascents up Sicily’s Mount Etna, with an average slope of six percent and patches of eleven and twelve was another kettle of fish. The day before Contador had sent a shudder up the peloton’s collective spine when he had grabbed a five-second gap on the field, chasing and nearly catching stage eight winner Oscar Gatto.

  At the start of the second ascent of the volcano, a break devoid of hope was three minutes up the road. 2005’s revelation José Rujano had announced his ambitions for a high final placing and erupted off the front of the peloton, looking for more than just a stage win.

  Then, with less than seven kilometers remaining, Alberto Contador attacked in the big ring with Scarponi for company. Seeing the intensity of the acceleration, Nibali wisely decided to ride to the top at his own speed. Contador set a pace that was too hot for Scarponi who realized that in trying to hold the Spaniard’s wheel he had gone too deep, forcing him to return to the chasing group.