The Cycliste Moderne, May 5, 2006

Sorry for the delay but I wanted to wait and do a Giro d’Italia preview shortly before the event to capture any last minute news.

Giro Preview

Saturday is the start of the Giro d’Italia, the first of the three grand tours. This year, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of a mining accident in Belgium that killed one hundred and thirty six Italian coal miners, the Giro will spend its first four stages in Belgium before transferring to Italy to finish the race. Only one of the stages in Belgium will favor the sprinters as the opening time trial includes a significant climb and the third and fourth stages cover many of the same climbs as the Ardennes Classics.

The Giro does not get any easier when they get to Italy with organizers introducing the first team time trial in almost twenty years at the Giro. The last week is incredibly difficult with four mountain top finishes, including a new climb this year that finishes with the final 5km over dirt roads as they climb up to the summit of the ski resort at Plan de Corones.

So, who will win?

Liquigas’ Danilo Di Luca had a breakout season last year with multiple stage wins at the Giro and holding the pink leader’s jersey for several days. Di Luca has finally found the type of success that he seemed destined to achieve. His focus this year has been on the Giro and he has maintained a fairly low profile spring. Di Luca is not enough of a pure climber and is not a strong enough time trialist to do much better than third overall. That will be an improvement over last year’s fourth.

Selle Italia’s Jose Rujano was the surprise of last year’s Giro. Nicknamed “the little pirate” due to his similarities to the late Marco Pantani, Rujano surprised many on the most difficult climbs last year. Rujano, however, lost about seven minutes to Ivan Basso in the time trial stages of last year’s Giro and with the team time trial, Selle Italia is sure to lose a lot of time to Team CSC, Discovery Channel and T-Mobile. Moreover, Rujano had a major falling out with team management over his salary and has signed to move to Quick.Step July 1. Even though the climbing stages will favor Rujano, the big teams will mark him closely and not let him go on the attack like he did last year.

Team CSC’s Ivan Basso was on his way to victory last year when a nasty stomach bug wiped out his chances. He toughed it out, stayed in the race and had a couple of stage victories. This year, Basso is trying to win both the Giro and the Tour de France. That has not been done since 1998 when Marco Pantani managed to win both after the Tour was rocked by the Festina drug scandal. It has been a long time since a great rider has managed to win both races against full strength teams. Basso can do it, but with Armstrong having retired, he would have been the favorite to win the Tour. Does Basso try to win both, only to win neither? That is the biggest risk he faces.

Discovery Channel’s Paolo Savoldelli won his second Giro d’Italia last year. He did so with his top lieutenant in the mountains, Tom Danielson, abandoning during the second week and with little team support. “Il Falco” showed his descending prowess to stay close to Simoni and Rujano and managed to preserve his lead after the epic second to last stage last year where he got dropped and just held on over the unpaved final climb of the Giro. This year, Savoldelli has Armstrong-like support with Discovery Channel sending Ekimov, Beltran, Padrnos, Joachim and Rubiera, all of whom helped Armstrong win at least one Tour. Additionally, the team is sending Australian hardman Matthew White who has Grand Tour experience, and young American climbers Tom Danielson and Jason McCartney who showed excellent form in the mountains at the recent Tour of Georgia.

Lampre’s Damiano Cunego is the young Italian phenom who surprised everyone, including his then team leader Gilberto Simoni, when he won the Giro in 2004. Cunego has shown moments of brilliance since and is a strong rider. However, it is questionable if Lampre has the horses to match Team CSC and Discovery Channel. Moreover, Cunego has not had good luck as a team leader in a Grand Tour since his victory in 2004.

Former Giro winner Gilberto Simoni has moved to the Spanish Saunier Duval-Prodir team. He gives the team its first real Grand Tour threat. Simoni finished second last year, unable to keep up the pace on the penultimate stage where he had taken the lead on the road.

So, who is going to win?

Basso and Savoldelli are significantly better time trialists than the other leaders. Basso and Savoldelli both have the two strongest teams at this year’s Giro. With the team time trial and the long flat time trial on Stage 11, it is possible that they both could have put seven plus minutes on their top competitors before the really difficult second half of the Giro starts. The last week is so difficult that they will need strong teams and big gaps after Stage 11. However, I fear that this year’s Giro could be like some of the Tours won by Armstrong where he had such an insurmountable lead by the time the real mountains started that the leading teams will just have to play defense the last half of the race.

Rujano has had too much drama this spring and is too much of a pure climber to be threat this year as he could come out of the Stage 11 time trial with a nearly ten minute deficit to Basso and Savoldelli. I think he is going to be like Iban Mayo in the Tour: after a really promising start, he could flame out the first week this year. Di Luca probably cannot climb well enough to be a threat. Simoni, too, could be facing major time losses by stage 11. Cunego has all the weight of Italy on him as the next Bartoli or Coppi.

So, my final podium:

1st – Basso
2nd – Savoldelli
3rd – Simoni
4th – Cunego
5th – Di Luca
Rujano will not finish the Giro this year.

Chris Horner is Having Fun

Christ Horner moved from Saunier Duval to Davitamon Lotto over the winter. I have not ever been a big Horner fan because he always seemed to be whining. Horner emerged in the mid 1990’s as the next great American rider. He moved to France to ride for Francaise de Jeux and did absolutely nothing for three years. He moved back to the US to race for Mercury Viatel only to have that team blow up when it did not receive a Tour de France wildcard. He spent the next five years dominating the US domestic scene with a variety of large and small teams, always talking about the lack of respect he received and whining about negative race tactics. Last year he had a few good races for Saunier Duval, winning a stage of the Tour de Suisse and nearly winning a stage of the Tour de France. He has had a strong spring including a stage win in the Tour of Romandie. He really seems to be enjoying racing and he has certainly matured. Horner will be riding the Tour de France to protect his team leader Cadel Evans.

Just in Time, My Marriage is Saved

Mrs. Cycliste Moderne was ready to go get DirecTV because she was convinced we could not live without the Tour de France, but I was not. Even though Dish Network had eliminated OLN and cycling is really important, I just could not bring myself to switch platforms. As a result, I had been streaming my coverage from Cycling.tv and reading the written race coverage for this spring’s races. I was not about to have a second satellite dish in my back yard. That would brand me as some type of permanent couch potato.

Then Monday, April 24th, a day that will be celebrated in the Cycliste Moderne home in perpetuity creating a two day Cycliste Moderne holiday (in combination with Portuguese Revolution Day, April 25th), OLN was returned to my satellite service. Late that night I found myself watching hockey, something I have not been able to do without OLN, the home of the NHL. I was thinking that it was kind of cool that ESPN Classic was showing classic Stanley Cup playoffs, when I realized that it was not ESPN Classic, but it was live game in the second overtime.

Of course, Dish Network sent out an e-mail to make us all think that we had received something new and wonderful, not mentioning that it had previously ripped our cycling coverage away from us. My life is now complete. I will be able to watch the Tour de France once again from the comfort of my own bed and not have to hit refresh on my laptop.