The Cycliste Moderne, May 27, 2005

Ivan Basso is a Pro.

Team CSC’s leader Ivan Basso proved his status as a team leader today when he raced to victory at Limone Piemonte, riding away from the race leaders over the 25km climb to the summit. Having lost nearly 45 minutes to the race leaders over the two climbing stages last weekend, and having lost the race lead, no one would have faulted Basso for abandoning and going home.

Instead, Basso rode back into good health after a couple of bad days with a stomach virus and got a second stage win for his team. Basso’s team had sacrificed all personal ambition for their leader during this year’s Giro d’Italia; it was certainly demoralizing to see one of the favorites, and clearly the strongest rider early in the Giro, be unable to eat or drink while riding and coming in more than 42 minutes behind the winner on Sunday.

Basso’s difficult week clearly evidences how incredible Lance Armstrong’s streak at the Tour de France has been. Structuring an entire team to support a single rider results in either significant success (if the leader does what he is supposed to and has no bad luck) or it is a recipe for disaster if the leader gets sick or hurt. One inopportune bug can ruin an entire season’s preparation, as has been the case with Basso. Basso finished second in the first time trial, finished second in the first climbing stage, won the second to last climbing stage, and probably would not have been defeated but for his illness.

The Big Finish.

As expected, Lampre-Caffita’s Gilberto Simoni attacked race leader Paolo Savoldelli today and managed to gain 50 seconds on the “Maglia Rosa.” However, that may not be enough even with one more high mountain finish to come. Simoni lost over two and a half minutes to Savoldelli on the first time trial. Although this stage is about 10km shorter, it has a similar profile. Savoldelli has become a very good time trialer over the last few years.

Joining Discovery Channel has further improved Savoldelli’s time trialing ability with improvements in equipment and technique. Savoldelli’s strong descending ability will make it difficult for Simoni to gain any time on him during the final time trial as there is a long descent into Torino.

Clearly, Savoldelli has been hindered by the lack of climbing support of the Discovery Channel team. He has been forced to ride the final climbs of all the mountain stages alone, requiring him to expend energy to go back and get food and water from the team car. If he is able to hold on to the pink jersey and deny Gilberto Simoni victory, Savoldelli’s ability to overcome the loss of his teammates Tom Danielson and Ryder Hesjedal will be nothing short of miraculous.

Looking Forward to France.

Much to the dismay of the management of Lampre-Caffita, Gilberto Simoni announced that he will go and race the Tour de France in support of his teammate Damiano Cunego. Simoni has indicated that he will do it to repay the help of his rival and teammate. Team management had not planned on having Simoni race the Tour and according to pezcyclingnews.com were not impressed with their star’s offer as they were intending to have Cunego be the team’s Tour de France leader. After last year’s bust up between the two during the Giro as Cunego clearly rode for himself and rode to victory, you really have to wonder how long Simoni’s offer of help will last, especially in light of Simoni’s poor record at the Tour.

Discovery Channel has announced that Paolo Savoldelli will race the Tour in support of Armstrong. If so, Discovery will be taking a very strong team, adding Savoldelli and Yaroslav Popovych to the traditional team. Obviously, the loss of Slava Ekimov due to his broken sternum and back is a major blow, but Discovery could have the strongest stable of General Classification riders ever on one team. With Savoldelli, Popovych, Azevedo and Armstrong on the team, Discover has four strong climbers and time trialists. Moreover, assuming Savoldelli does not completely fail in his stated goal of finishing in the top five at this year’s Giro, the four riders will have a total of 13 top five finishes in the three Grand Tours since 1998.