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If you ever wondered why Danilo Di Luca is nicknamed The Killer, one look at him today on the closing kilometres of the Blockhaus would put you in no doubt. Teeth clenched and wild eyed, he had all the look of a rampaging murderer. Di Luca was going at full gas, once again trying to seize this Giro by the sheer force of his own will.
Up the road was Franco Pellizotti of Liquigas, who after appearing dead and buried on Monday had attacked on the lower slopes in attempt to put himself back into the race. Behind him were several of his key rivals, including Pellizotti’s team mate Ivan Basso and Cervelo’s Carlos Sastre. And glued limpet-like to his wheel was race leader Denis Menchov, who held a slim 39 second advantage over him. Di Luca had to limit the time Pellizotti gained, increase his advantage over the chasing riders and somehow try to shake off Menchov. Such was the fierceness of his riding, that it was easy to believe he could accomplish all three, were it not for the the fact that Menchov appeared stony faced and unflappable as he tracked his rival to the top of the Blockhaus.
Di Luca has ridden this Giro the hard way, always at the front, always on the hunt for stage wins or podium positions to eek out those bonus seconds. He has appeared almost indestructible and it’s almost impossible to believe that a rider can go so hard for two and a half weeks and never show signs of cracking. Somehow he has.
Pellizotti though held on for his stage win and took 40 odd seconds from Di Luca and Menchov. It was good enough to put him put to third place overall, but not enough to really threaten the leading duo, since he finished the day a full two minutes behind Menchov in the overall. Pellizotti though made a serious statement today. While he was largely anonymous for the past few stages, his team mate Basso attacked twice and didn’t make much from it. When Pellizotti went today, he made it count.
If Pellizotti gained the most today, Carlos Sastre was the big loser, finishing 1:19 behind Menchov. Now back in fifth in the overall and 3:30 behind Menchov his slim chance of victory is more or less gone. Yet somehow this adds to Sastre’s appeal as a rider. He’s good, but has feet of clay and paid the price of his big attack on Monday by suffering today. Sastre spent much of the final kilometres riding with Lance Armstrong, who once again looked incredibly strong. Although he caught up with Armstrong by the end of the stage, his team mate Levi Leipheimer had another miserable day in the saddle. His chance of even a podium spot now appears gone for good.
While Pellizotti won the stage, Di Luca, Menchov and a resurgent Stefano Garzelli fought it out for second. Garzelli proved to have the fresher legs adding more points to his already commanding lead in the mountains classification. Di Luca though managed to put a few bike lengths into Menchov and grab the bonus seconds for third place. The gap now stands at 26 seconds between the pair. Those few seconds won’t make a massive difference but the important thing is that Di Luca has seen a chink in Menchov’s hitherto impregnable facade. Having complained on Monday about how it was impossible to break him, Di Luca now knows that maybe a well time attack on the slopes of Mount Vesusvius could give him what he needs.
On the slopes of the epic climb to Sestrière, Stefano Garzelli is gunning for glory. It’s the queen stage of this year’s Giro, 260 kilometres through the mountains. The stage was originally meant to mirror the epic stage of 1949, when Fausto Coppi went on a 190 kilometre solo break to put 11 minutes into his rivals. However, issues about different radio frequencies between Italy and France, combined with the risk of landslides meant that the stage route was altered some time back, stripping Colle della Maddalena, Col de Vars and Col d’Izoard. What was set to be a savage affair still has enough to lend it the air of an epic.
Garzelli clearly has a sense of history and while he won’t rack up as many solo miles as Coppi did on that famous day, he will end up spending the guts of 120 kilometres out on his own. Although he has built up more than six minutes on the maglia rosa of Danilo Di Luca, his chances of vaulting himself back into contention for the overall classification are practically non-existant. Instead he is hoovering up the mountains points to cement his lead in the green jersey and maybe just about hang on for a win reminisicent of Claudio Chiappucci’s lone attack to Sestrière in the 1992 Tour de France.
Behind him he has two groups of chasers and ones he crosses the summit, they begin to make ground on him. Garzelli still retains the hope of latching on to his pursuers and perhaps grabbing the win.
Behind them, nothing much is expected from the main bunch. While the stage is incredibly tough, the last climb of the day is the relatively short Pra’ Martino. It’s summit is 11 kilometres from the finish and the consensus is that the run in isn’t difficult enough for any of the overall contenders to make a move.
It comes as something of a surprise then when the fireworks start at the bottom of the Martino. Liquigas once again are the team who light the fuse, with the excellent Sylvester Szmyd setting a ferocious pace that sees riders being shelled out the back of the bunch. Once Szmyd has done his work, Franco Pellizotti flies off the front. His caption Ivan Basso pauses for a moment, trying to let Pellizotti get away. The first time they try it, the bunch chases. Pellizotti’s second attack is successful however and before long he is passing and dropping Garzelli and co.
Basso is playing a clever if risky game. Pellizotti still is high enough up in the overall classification to count as a threat. Basso can wait for his rivals to launch the chase and then perhaps capitalise on it. Sure enough, race leader Danilo Di Luca begins a furious pursuit. Di Luca is protecting his jersey, but also now has the sniff of a stage win, since he stands a good chance of winning from a small bunch of the favourites, possessing as he does, a bigger kick than any of his rivals.
Not surprisingly, Di Luca catches and passes Pellizotti on the descent. Surprisingly though, Leipheirmer, Basso and a few others lose contact. Sastre, Menchov and Pellizotti manage to stay in touch. Bassos’s game has blown up in his face.
Entering the finishing town of Pinerolo, Di Luca kicks on the final drag. Only Sastre seems capable of going with him, but even the diminutive Spaniard is distanced in the end. Di Luca solos home for another stage win, having put every one of his rivals to the sword.
The stage ended up telling us far more about the race for the overall classification than we could ever have expected it to. Di Luca has put a marker firmly down that he is a contender to be reckoned with. He still has the challenge of two time trials and two mountain top finishes, neither of which suit his punchy style. Yet when he won in 2007 he proved a master of limiting his losses on such stages. Whether he can do it again against stiffer opposition remains to be seen.
Sastre, Menchov and Pellizotti have cemented their positions as dangermen and the Spaniard in particular should be written off at your peril. While everyone assumed he was building towards the Tour, he now looks like a man with the form to win.
Leipheimer and Basso looked more like mere mortals and will be kicking themselves about losing time to such a group. Although their losses are minimal, they could still count in the final shakeup. Mick Rogers meanwhile appeared to get dropped on the Martino, which doesn’t bode well for a man facing two mountain top finishes later in the race. All told, the race is still wide open.
Yesterday’s stage to Bergamo seemed unlikely to be one that would affect the overall classifcation. Although fairly lumpy, the terrain wasn’t severe enough to encourage a shake-up and the general consensus was it was likely to favour the stars of the hilly classics, since the stage covered similar territory to the Giro di Lombarida. Race leader Danilo Di Luca was in with a shout of adding a second stage win this year, while Stefano Garzelli was no doubt eyeing this up as an opportunity and Philip Gilbert probably saw it as an opportunity to bring home a much needed win after failing to register one in the spring classics campaign. Most eyes though were fixed on Damiano Cunego. The fact that he has won Lombardia three times was ample enough evidence that this was perfect stage for him.
The Italian has been having a bad Giro and was sitting three and a half minutes back in the overall classification. Having won the race in 2004, he hasn’t looked like repeating the feat, despite a number of good placings. He ended up voicing his frustration on Wednesday, when he made some thinly veiled comments about some of his rivals, claiming that he was riding with a “clear conscience”. “There’s a stage result that has punished me sometimes and then there’s a stage result, let’s say, in life, where everyone has to look at themselves in the mirror. I’m not the only who does the right thing but I do it. We’ve already seen some result rewritten when races have been archived and that hurts,” he said.
It’s not the first time he’s made these suggestions, having had a bit of an exchange earlier this year with Ivan Basso. Cunego began to make a big deal about the fact that he was riding clean last year, even sporting a temporary tattoo at the Tour de France. Previously though he had raised eyebrows due to his past association with Dr. Luigi Cecchini.
Back to yesterday’s stage, everything seemed to be going to plan for Cunego, with his Lampre team coming to the front at the business end of the stage and reeling in the day’s break. On the day’s penultimate climb, the Colle del Gallo, Cunego then sprang free in a small group containing Garzelli. However Mick Rogers and Franco Pellizotti then combined to casually toss a hand grenade into the race by also positioning themselves in the escape.
Rogers is Columbia’s man for the overall classification. A three time world time trial champion, he is capable of riding a good stage race but was a bit of an unknown quantity coming into the Giro. He has missed much of the past two years due to injury, but has begun to look like he is coming back to form this year and has been tipped as a darkhorse for the general classification and started the day third overall, just 36 seconds down from Di Luca.
Pellizotti meanwhile led Liquigas at last year’s Giro and finished a strong fourth. With Ivan Basso now on the team, the two officially are class as co-leaders, but most observers would class Pellizotti as Plan B. Basso’s primacy was underlined on stage five, when he and the other leading contenders rode away from Pellizotti on the the Alpe di Siusi. Nevertheless, he remained only 1:27 off the lead in the overall classification.
While the presence of Pellizotti and Rogers in the break didn’t seem to bother the other favourites, Astana’s Levi Leipheimer decided that he was leaving nothing to chance and attacked out of the peloton to bridge across to the group. This was now a very dangerous escape and a furious pursuit was mounted. Di Luca’s LPR team had to bury themselves at the front to protect his maglia rosa, assisted by Rabobank’s Laurens Ten Dam, who was riding for his team leader Denis Menchov. The break was duly caught, destroying Cunego and Garzelli’s chances of a stage win. With the bunch clearly wiped out from the pursuit, Kanstantsin Siutsou launched an opportunistic attack to solo home for the stage win, the second in the row for the Columbia team.
The Giro d’Italia kicks off in Venice today. The centenary edition of the Italian national tour, this year’s event is a little different from the norm. It abandons its usual finish in Milan in favour of a trip to the capital city Rome and features a parcours that could throw up some interesting results. As with every Giro, there is plenty of climbing involved, but this year there isn’t much opportunity for the heavy hitters in the time trial to make an impact. The entire race is book ended by two short time trials, a 20km team affair in Venice and a 14km individual test in Rome. The main individual time trial comes on Stage 12, an epic 60km course that appears both technical and hilly. It’s the kind of TT that could allow many of the climbers to put in strong times and remain in contention.
While the Giro is one of the premier events on the cycling calendar it has always played second fiddle to the Tour de France and recent years have seen many top riders keep their powder dry until July. However, this year’s race has attracted huge array of talent for one reason or another and it is likely to be the most open Giro in years. There are five former winners taking part, in addition to two Tour de France winners and a Vuelta victor to boot. While there are some obvious favourites, many are coming back from injuries, suspension and, in one case, retirement. As a result, it’s hard to call a winner, but here are some of riders who should be in contention:
1. Levi Leipheimer
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I can hardly believe it myself, but somehow the American has emerged to be the favourite, on paper at least. Over the past couple of years he has developed into a serious grand tour contender. He grabbed second in the Vuelta last year and came third in the 2007 Tour de France. Yet there is something about Leipheimer that doesn’t convince. For a start, he appears doomed to play second fiddle to someone else. His own team hired first Ivan Basso and later Alberto Contador to play the starring role and this year he found himself slipping further down the pecking order with Lance Armstrong’s return from retirement. It is only by default that he’s found himself to be Astana’s main man for the Giro, given that Armstrong’s collar bone break put him behind schedule in terms of preparing for the Giro. One can’t help but wonder if this lack of confidence in him isn’t justified. Leipheimer is a great time trialist, but in the mountains he often comes across as a bit timid. He’s a great man for following wheels, but rarely attacks. All of this is good enough for a top five position, but you have to wonder if has the killer instinct to take a really big win.
2. Ivan Basso
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The favourite in many people’s eyes, Basso won the Giro in 2006 and then promptly got caught by the Operation Puerto doping investigation and was slapped with a two year suspension. Two years away from the sport leaves a lot of unanswered questions. At the time of his suspension he was emerging as the premier Grand Tour rider of his generation, but even the most dedicated riders (and Basso appears to have taken his training very seriously during his suspension) will struggle to get back to where they were. There is also the tricky doping question, namely how well can he do now assuming he’s riding clean (which he always insists he did, hilariously claiming he was caught before he got a chance to dope). So far, he’s been making all the right noises. His first race back in an end-season race in Japan saw him grab third behind compatriots Cunego and Visconti. He showed well in the Tirreno – Adriatico, doing a lot of hard riding for his team and then topped off his Giro preparations by winning the Giro del Trentino last month. A three week tour is a different kettle of fish and we won’t know until the racing gets going whether Basso still has the edge.
3. Damiano Cunego
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Il Piccolo Principe grabbed a surprise Giro win in 2004 at the tender age of 22, much to the annoyance of his team leader Gilberto Simoni (we’ll have more about that later). Since then however, Cunego hasn’t been able repeat the feat. His form dipped for a year or two due to a bout of glandular fever and over the past two years he has emerged as one of the premier contenders for the hilly classics. That hasn’t stopped him from throwing his hat into the ring for the Grand Tours, coming 4th in the Giro in 2006 and 5th in 2007. Last year he skipped the Italian race in favour of the Tour de France, but wilted badly in the mountains. Cunego was quiet enough in the Ardennes races in April, leading one to conclude he’s either a little off form or trying to peak for the Giro. This year’s race is suited to him however. The climbing isn’t as severe as other years, suiting his punchy style and the hilly time trial could enable him to stay in contention. The fact that he hasn’t threatened in a few years now combined with the return of Basso means that there is less local pressure on him to win, another factor that could swing in his favour.
4. Lance Armstrong
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The seven time Tour de France winner took everyone by surprise last year when he announced his return from retirement. While he says he’s doing it to promote awareness of his cancer campaign, one does get the sense that the hyper-competitive Texan couldn’t resist the lure of competing once again. With team mate Alberto Contador first in line for the leadership position at the Tour de France, Armstrong turned his attention to the Giro, a race he’s neve competed in. A few early season showings proved that he wasn’t totally off the pace at least, but he suffered a severe setback in his preparations when he broke his collar bone at the Vuelta Castilla y Leon. That left him in a race against time to regain fitness for the Giro and vaulted his team mate Levi Leipheimer into the role of Astana’s main man for the race. Armstrong is 37, hasn’t ridden a grand tour since 2005 and has very little racing in his legs going into this one. In short, he looks like a very long shot. But stranger things have been known to happen in cycling.
5. Gilberto Simoni
The veteran Italian, now aged 37, has two Giro wins under his belt and may well be in his last season. Simoni though remains a serious contender, driven by the fact that he feels he should have won more. In 2002, he missed out on repeating his win from the previous year after being suspended for cocaine use, something he was subsequently exonerated of. In 2004, his team mate Damiano Cunego managed to ride off with the win, despite the fact that he was meant to be working for his captain. Simoni is outspoken if anything and his feuds with other riders have lit up many a Giro. In 2004 he called Cunego a “bastard” in front of journalists and in 2006 he famously dubbed Ivan Basso’s riding as “extraterrestrial” pointing a finger months before Basso was named in the Puerto investigation. Cunego and Simoni have reportedly kissed and made up this year, an alliance of convenience driven by Basso’s chumminess with Armstrong. However, while Simoni will no doubt give his all, age has begun to work against him and its hard to see him mounting the top step again.
6. Danilo Di Luca
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The Killer was a surprise Giro victor in 2007. A strong rider in the hilly classics, many had doubted that Di Luca had the legs for the high mountains or the powers of recovery for a three week race. Since then he was thrown out of the Liquigas team after garnering a six month suspension over the Oil for Drugs doping scandal and is now racing with the Pro Continental outfit LPR. The upshot is that Di Luca hasn’t won as many invitations to the big races as before and, as such, is a bit of an unknown quantity at present. Still, he has looked strong at the Tirreno – Adriatico and Giro del Trentino this year, but one gets the sense that Di Luca may struggle to win against the firepower that is lining out for this year’s Giro. He’ll be in the mix and is a candidate for a stage win or two, but the overall could be beyond him.
7. Carlos Sastre
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It is something of a surprise that last year’s Tour de France winner is racing the Giro this year, given that he usually concentrates his efforts on the Tour and the Vuelta. On paper, Sastre looks like he is using this as a training exercise for the Tour and if that’s the case we shouldn’t expect much from him. However, Sastre knows that he’ll be up against much stiffer competition in this year’s Tour, with the return of Alberto Contador and the fact that the Schleck brothers will be racing against him and not for him this year. The Giro could be a better shot of another grand tour win. However, Sastre has been very quiet during the year to date, so if that is the plan, he has played his cards very close to his chest. But he was also very quiet in the run up to last year’s Tour, so you never know.
8. Denis Menchov
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Like Sastre, the received wisdom is that the Russian is riding the Giro in preparation for the Tour, something he did last year too. That didn’t stop him from coming in 5th, so Menchov can’t be ruled out as a serious operator. It’s also easy to forget that he has two Vueltas already under his belt. Menchov is in no position to bank on a Tour win, so if he senses an opportunity here, he may well go for it.
9. Stefano Garzelli
Garzelli’s sole Giro win came in 2000, when his team mate Marco Pantani was on the wane. Since then Garzelli’s career has had its ups and downs and includes being thrown out of the 2002 event for doping. Now racing for the Pro Continental outfit Aqua e Sapone, Garzelli rode a good Giro in 2007, when he won two stages. However, his team failed to garner an invite for last year’s event. Garzelli doesn’t appear to have the legs to be an overall candidate any more, but judging by his form to date this year, which includes a second place at the Tirreno – Adriatico, he is likely to feature at the business end of the race and could very well grab a stage or two.
