[Giro 2003]Stage 20 - Relentless Efforts

Giro Reporter race-report@cyclofiend.com
Mon, 02 Jun 2003 00:03:07 -0700


Stage 20 - Canobbio - Cantu - 120 km

The last road leg, rolling over mostly flat roads into the great city of
Milano, Italy for the penultimate stage of the 2003 Giro D'Italia.
Gilberto Simoni of Team Saeco leads by a stunning 8:04 over Stefano
Garzelli of Caldirola-Sidermec, who in turn is hanging on by a scant two
seconds over the Ukranian Yaroslav Popovych, who rides for
Landbouwkrediet-Colnago. The famed framebuilder Ernesto Colnago has
spoken highly of the young rider, touting him as one of the great forces
in cycling in the last 50 years.  High praise from a man who has met
most of them.

In the back of my mind, I supposed that today would be the big
"Piaaaaaannnnnooo!" stage - riders taking it easy, rolling along and
just dipping into town under the time limit.  The Green climbers jersey
was pretty much sewn up by Colombia-Selle Italia's Fredy Gonzalez unless
he gets abducted by space aliens, the Blue InterGiro jersey was on the
shoulders of the imposing Magnus Backsted of Team Fakta and didn't seem
to be going anywhere, and the cyclamina (mauve) points jersey was well
hidden under the Maglia Rosa on Simoni's shoulders. Garzelli could nick
it from him, but clearly won't be given a free pass from the leader to
go for the points.
Theoretically, Jan Svorada of Lampre could challenge for the points
jersey, but even though they were reduced in numbers, the red guard of
Saeco probably had enough oomph left to prevent that - Svorada would
have to take intermediate points on the road, and then win the stage.
Certainly, as one of the last sprinters left in the race, he probably
has a high percentage of one or the other of those scenarios, but not
both. It's my guess that if he takes the intermediate sprint points, he
will be a seriously marked man at the finish. Although they are now
without Fabio Sacchi or Dario Pieri, I'm betting that a few of the
lanky, red-clad Italians who are left to guard the Maglia Rosa could
notch up the pace enough to give Lampre and Svorada quite a headache.  I
don't remember anyone really managing to lead Svorada out, other than
the riders from Fassa Bortolo or the zebras of Domina-Vacanze.

As soon as coverage opens at less than 50 km to go, the riders are in
the act of proving my intuition dead wrong.  Since the rollout, there
have been a cavalcade of attacks, a virtual merry-go-round of riders
hurtling off the front, others rocketing out to join them and then
breaks from within the breaks repeating the whole series of events.  I
guess the other side of the coin is that since it's the last road stage,
_everyone_ is determined to make a go of it, and try to have someone
other than Fassa Bortolo (8 stage wins this year - Dario Frigo, Aitor
Gonzalez and SIX by Petacchi), Domina-Vacanze (Mario x2) or Gilberto
Simoni (three stage wins).  The pace for the first half hour was over 50
km/hr... Buckle your seat belts - it's gonna be a scorcher.  Bright sun,
light winds and a temperature in the high 80's.

Today, 97 riders begin the race, none of the teams are intact, and only
7 of the 19 teams have more than four riders left on their squad.
Lotto-Domo has one rider left (Koos Morenhout), Ceramiche Panaria has
two, FDJeux.com has three (including the strongly riding Sandy Casar),
while Gerolsteiner, Tenax, Fakta CCC-Polsat have four left.

Julian Winn, British National Champion who rides for Fakta, has moved
strongly off the front, and a couple of small echelons move away from
the Saeco-controlled peleton. With minor dinking around a few riders
hook up, argue, split up, move away, and riders are splintering in and
out of groups in front of a stretched out peleton.  Speed is high and
the Team Directors must have explained the importance of logos in front
of television cameras.

Lampre gets a bit busy at the front to keep things intact, after a
couple of zebras have moved up and away on a short, sharp climb. Others
move up toward the striped pair of Gabriele Colombo and Giovanni
Lombardi. A group of about 15 riders have hooked up with the pair,
containing among other riders Marco Pantani, who is in with at least one
teammate.   Another group of 10 or so seem to be halfway between them
and the peleton, which follows the pacemaking of Lampre and Saeco.

Dissension begins in the lead group, as they spread a bit across the
roadway and argue about who should be taking the next pull.  The entire
   Panaria team takes up the reigns - of course, that's only two guys,
but they're really working hard...

The lead group keeps swelling, as the second break seems to have pulled
up to have 28 riders away.  The InterGiro point appears as if no one was
aware, and Eddie Mazzoleni from Caldirola-Sidermec jumps out to take it.
   About 44 seconds later, a clearly soft-pedaling  main group has only
Saeco on the front.

Pantani grimaces behind the wheel of teammate Cristian Gasparoni, who
paces him off the front.  They gap the breakaway group, and Sandy Casar
lights out after him - Casar is only a few seconds behind the new-eared
one in the GC.

Pantani has popped off the back, and Mazzoleni has joined up  with
Giuliano Figueras of Panaria, Carlos Zaballa from Kelme and Lorenzo
Bernucci from Landbouwkrediet-Colnago.  They can't resist dinking around
under the dense trees for a moment of two, but they quickly begin taking
serious pulls.

A chase group screams through the twisty, undulating roads (where Bob
Roll used to train when he lived in the area), and somehow Marco Velo of
Fassa Bortolo has moved off the front.  They must have caught the small
group out of view of the cameras.  Velo is away  on a good move as folks
slow and look for others to take up the chase. In the words of the TV
chef - BAM - Giovanni Lombardi - the quiet zebra who usually leads out
Mario Cipollini takes off up the roadway.  He is instantaly away from
everyone instantly, streaking up towards the wheel of Velo. He snags him
as if he's got a motor. The two have committed to this as they run under
the 25 km to go banner - swapping the pacemaking duties.  The two have
1:40 over the main group - no gaps given to the stage-grasping hopfulls
who are in all kind of groupings somewhere nearby behind.  There we go,
they have about a 15 second gap, but it's not clear if that's the
closest group or the biggest group.  A threesome with Australian Scott
Sunderland from Fakta, Denis Lunghi from Alessio, and Bernucci has
decided they can make the gap.

Now they blow under the 20 km banner, in what seems like only a few
seconds later and the gap has increased up to 23 seconds.

The troika gets grabbed by the leaders of the breakaway bunch, and when
the riders take a breath to recover, Gianni Faresin from Gerolsteiner
bolts away, but they keep him under contol with another effort.

Lombardi and Velo suffer on a bit of a climb - well, actually Lombardi
is obviously suffering as they hit the first bits of the incline to the
last GpM point - a category 3 climb.

Mazzoleni strongly accellerates out of the bunch and actually has a bit
of a gap.

15 km to go.  Lombardi's head is down aas they hit a bit of a climbing
reprieve.  Switching back to Mazzoleni, he clearly is moving faster over
the same ground. Figueras has hooked up with Mazzoleni now, and they
crest up toward GpM climb through the streets of Cantu, 13 km from the
finish.  Mazzoleni is a lanky, long-limbed and powerful rider, while
Figueras looks like he's built more for the mountains. Nevertheless,
they've chipped away a few seconds, while the big chase group has
skipped back to around 45 seconds.

If the second pair can hook up with them, it will change the dynamics a
bit, as Lombardi can easily crush Velo in a sprint if he hasn't lost too
much energy on that climb.  But the addition of Mazzoleni will put a
very fresh looking pair of legs in the equation, and Figueras does have
a fast finish as well.

The gap has edged down to about 10 seconds as the roads straighten a
bit.  The chasers can see them and they definitely have the added
impetus of seeing their prey.

With about 7 km to go, they look like they are about to hook up with thw
leading pair - what ho! - there goes Mazzoleni!  Just before the hook
up, he dropped behind Figueras, blew his nose and just hammered up and
away up the roadway! Simoni knows that was the hard move, and tries to
move up, but Mazzoleni moves away untouched.  Now, Figueras moves up and
away, trying to catch him, but the other two nip up to his wheel as
everyone rolls under the 5 km to go banner.

Mazzoleni takes a quick look behind as he tries to find a little more
speed, a little less wind.  He is fully committed, sliding up on the
saddle and looking like he wants this.  That may have been the move of
the day, as he hammers it through the streets of town.

Back in the big chase group, three of Pantani's teammates still set the
pace to bring them up.  They grind and hammer

Lombardi has gone!  He makes an incredible accelleration up a slight
incline and turn and somehow, he's regained Mazzoleni! 3 km to go!
Lombardi goes right past him continues to hammer the pace, and looking
back to coax Mazzoleni to take a turn.  But Mazzoleni knows better than
to tow the ferocious zebra sprint leadout man toward the line and won't,
which allow Velo and Figueras to reattach themselves.  They are under a
kilometer to go and the four eye each other through an anaerobic glaze.

Suddenly Velo hits hard as they pass under the 1 km to go banner, but
Lombardi was ready and pounces hard.  He knows that he needs to keep
everyone together.  Now within 800 meters of the line, the roadway opens
up a bit and Velo leads the quartet with Lombardi directly on his wheel.
   It's like a four-up match sprint, as they eye one another and cast
furtive glances back up the roadway.

  From the distance, the thundering hooves of the chase group come into
view - they cannot afford to dink around! They close quickly as Velo
tries in vain to accellerate away.  That kicks Lombardi into action and
he wrenches at the bars trying to squeeze every last potential cell of
effort into his pedals.  Mazzoleni moves with him, punching a large pink
balloon out off the way with his pedal stroke. Figueras tries to move as
well.  Lombardi has speed from another world, and he edges slightly to
his right, then holds a straight line directly to the finish.  Arms up
and a full bike length - Giovanni Lombardi takes the victory.

Mazzoleni holds second place with a strong effort while Figueras nips
Velo before the line.  A mere four seconds later, the chase group
hammers in, just a tad too slow today.

The main group now rolls in with Saeco pacing the bunch at about 1:47 back.

Stage 20 -
1 - Giovanni Lombardi - Domina Vacanze - 3:05:30
2 - Eddy Mazzoleni - Caldirola-Sidermec - s.t.
3 - Guiliano Figueras - Ceramiche-Panaria - s.t.
4 - Marco Velo - Fassa Bortoloa - s.t.
5 - Mario Manzoni - Mercatone Uno - @:04


Mazzoleni's breakaway efforts have moved him into the top ten, replacing
Wladimir Belli of Lampre.

Overall -
Maglia Rosa - Gilberto Simoni - 88:51:51
2 - Stefano Garzelli - @8:04
3 - Yaroslav Popovych - @8:06
4 - Andra Noe - @9:49
5 - Georg Totschnig - Gerolsteiner - @10:35
6 - Raimondas Rumsas - @11:01
7 - Dario Frigo - @12:38
8 - Franco Pellizotti - @14:21
9 - Sergei Gontchar - @16:28
10 - Eddy Mazzoleni - @20:03


Vittoria Adorni has held the biggest g