The Cycliste Moderne, April 29, 2005

Petacchi Rolls

Alessandro Petacchi of Fassa Bortolo is showing he will be the sprinter to beat, again, at this year’s Giro d’Italia. He entered this week’s Tour of Romandie in Switzerland with fourteen victories already this season. He has now added two more with wins in the first two stages, riding the peleton off his wheel during the last 500m of Stage 1 and coming around CSC’s sprinter and former Cippolini lead-out man Giovanni Lombardi to get the win today.

Petacchi is probably the fastest man in pro cycling. Fassa Bortolo will come to the Giro prepared to sacrifice its GC hopes in support of Petacchi. Today, at Romandie, the team put Dario Frigo, a past GC contender at the Giro, on the front to help Phonak bring the break back. Although Frigo will likely be Fassa Bortolo’s GC man in the Giro, it is likely that due to this year’s course, he will spend some time on the front bringing back the long breakaways that occur during the first week of the Giro.

With Cippolini’s retirement and Tom Boonen’s focus on the Tour de France, Petacchi’s only real sprint challenger at the Giro will be Robbie McEwen of Davitamon-Lotto. Davitamon-Lotto and Fassa Bortolo will ride hard to ensure that the stages come together at the end and are set up for a sprint. The first week of the Giro is likely to look a lot more like NASCAR than bike racing.


Giro Pre Preview

The Giro starts a week from Saturday and while we will have a more detailed preview next week, it is interesting to review the preliminary rosters from some of the teams. With the ProTour’s guaranteed entry of each of the top 20 teams in each of the Grand Tours, it remains clear that only the Italian teams and those teams with Italian riders are coming to win.

Obviously, Fassa Bortolo is coming with Petacchi to win stages and the points jersey. Lampre-Caffita is coming with past winners Damiano Cunego and Gilberto Simoni. Liquigas-Bianchi comes with past winner Stefano Garzelli. Domina Vacanze lines up with Serhiy Honchar and Wladimir Belli (best known for punching out Simoni’s relatives a couple of years ago on one of the climbs and getting thrown of the race), who both have top 10 potential. Discovery starts with past winner Paolo Salvoldelli. CSC comes with Ivan Basso for the GC and Lombardi for the sprints. Cofidis is bringing a team which could get some stage wins with Stuart O’Grady. Credit Agricole is coming with Pietro Caucchioli, who finished third in 2002, and Quick.Step brings Paolo Bettini who is not a threat for the GC but certainly could win multiple stages.

As for the Spanish teams, their provisional start lists are veritable Who’s Who of Nobodies. Spanish teams have not aggressively contested the Giro for ten years. Similarly, Italian teams show little interest in the Vuelta. It is the ProTour that makes these teams show up at all the big races. In the past, Discovery (or shall we say it’s predecessor US Postal Service) and Credit Agricole have not shown any interest in the Giro. This year they signed Italian leaders for the race and appear to be coming with the intention of getting results.

With fewer wildcards for the Grand Tours as a result of the mandatory participation of the ProTour teams there will be some teams that have no interest in the Giro at all that will line up while smaller domestic teams that have aggressively raced over the last few years are excluded. Therefore, do not expect to see anyone from the Spanish teams, Gerolsteiner, T-Mobile, Bouygues Telecom, or Française des Jeux do anything except work on their tans as they race north through Italy.