Getting Ready for the Giro

Tour de Romandie Recap

Former Giro d'Italia winner Paolo Savoldelli of Astana showed that he should be a contender for the GC this year, as he won the opening prologue of the six day Tour de Romandie, the final stage race tune up before next Saturday's start of the Giro. Although Rabobank's Dutch phenom, Thomas Dekker won the overall with his win Sunday in the final 20km time trial, Savoldelli showed strength in both the prologue and final time trial, where he finished second, as well as Saturday's queen stage when Savoldelli finished fifth behind the group of Dekker and Lotto-Predictor's American Chris Horner and two other riders. Horner wore the leader's jersey for one day but finished overall in fifth after he lost almost a minute on the time trial. All in all, Savoldelli has to be a favorite for the Giro. He is on a strong team, he has had good results, and he has won it before on just pure guts. Dekker also returned to the form that caused many to say he was the next big thing two years ago at the age of 20 before injuries sidelined him last year.

Operacion Puerto Update

The news early this week was Ivan Basso's requested release from Discovery Channel. This gave Discovery an out leading up to the Giro with its team leader having seen the investigation into his relationship with a Spanish doping ring reopened in Italy. Already, small Italian team Amore & Vita McDonalds has expressed its desire to sign Basso. Although the team's ownership rails against the big time evils of drugs in sports, the timing of the announcement was likely just a publicity stunt for the team sponsored by the Catholic Church's anti-abortion program and the American fast food giant.

Spanish news outlets are also reporting the impending relase of another, larger dossier implicating another fifty cyclists, among whom are reported to include some of the largest names in the sport. It is unclear why these documents were not previously released with the prior documents but they promise to keep the scandal on the front burner.

In other Puerto news, Alejandro Valverde who has continued to race this spring as rumors surrounded him as to his link to the scandal is now being linked to EPO tainted blood recovered in the investigation. Although blood purportedly belonging to Ivan Basso has been identified by media sources as not containing EPO, Valverde's blood has now been identified as blood which showed evidence of EPO boosting. Regardless of whether EPO is used or not, blood transfusions are banned.

Here is the latest from Cyclingnews.com's archive on Puerto.

The Little 500

ESPN.com's Page 2 had this excellent account of Indiana University's Little 500, which inspired the great cycling film, Breaking Away.