[Giro 2003]Stage 7 - Terminus at Terminillo

[Giro Reporter]

Stage 7 - 146 km Avezzano to Terminillo

The cheesy boys got visited by the Italian Police last night, and much
to the pleasure of everyone, they found nothing after a complete search
of the Formaggi Pinzoli Fiave rooms at their hotel.

Meanwhile, I'm experiencing a bit of a Mighty-Casey-at-the-bat letdown
after watching Mario pull the plug on his efforts at the line yesterday.
      I'll admit I'm biased, and would really like to see the man from
Lucca pull two (or at least one) more victories out of his hat.  After
such a phenomenal season last year, it's tough to watch him not firing
on all cylinders this season.  He looks good, and his team has delivered
him to the right place, but he's lacked that punch while Petacchi has
clearly been on the top of his game.  But the race is long, and there
will be at least a couple more wide boulevard finishes.

Today however, is a date with destiny for those who wish to wear the
Maglia Rosa into Milan on the final stage.  Gilberto Simoni of Saeco has
forecast his dominance of this stage for anyone who will listen, but the
16.1 km climb will drop the big thumb on the scale today.  Some will
suffer as this is the first real climb, and the legs won't easily make
the transition from flat road to elevated efforts.  Some will recover
over the next weeks, as the real multi-peak efforts of the Dolomites lie
ahead for the pure clmbers. Today will be a tightening of the vise, to
see just who is ready to handle the pressure.

As we join the Giro gang today with about 35 km to go, there's a
breakaway of 5 who have about 1:30 in front of the group:

47 Giuseppe Palumbo - De Nardi-Colpack
81 Elio Aggianto - Formaggi Pinzolo Fiave (the Clean Cheese Boys)
171 Cristiano Frattini - Tenax
164 Magnus Backstedt - Team Fakta
177 Oscar Pozzi - Tenex

Of course, we could play "one of these things is not like the other -
either with the name that doesn't end in a vowel or the boy who's just
plain bigger than the rest in the bunch - that'd be Magnus "Magnum"
Backstedt - the man towers over the riders in this break.  He can't be
getting much in the way of shelter by any of the dinky riders in his
break. Ok, Frattini is at least riding a frame which is of similar
size, but he lacks the mass of the big Swede.

Overall, 165 of the original 169 riders.  Light wind under sunny skies,
and a moderate 72 degrees today.  Perfect for the hard effort which lies
ahead.  The peloton glides under the 30 km to go banner.  Saeco has been
torquing the effort to narrow the gap before the final climbs. Simoni
sits in behind his teammates, biding his time.

As the lead group comes up through toward the InterGiro sprint point,
Pozzi takes a flyer to try to nab the points, but Backstedt grinds right
up to his rear wheel, bringing the others along. As they squeeze within
that last 150 meters, Backstedt throws it up a notch and moves away from
the rest, taking the InterGiro bonuses.  That should move him up from
fourth to second, after all the caculations occur.

Now Lampre strings out the peleton, paid to deliver Francesco Casagrande
to his date with the real race.

Aggiano and Pozzi move away as they begin to climb.  Bravado, bravado as
they move up over the first little notch  - a 3rd category climb that
provides a bit of demoralization before the final ascent.

Garzelli's teammates begin to drive the pace on this climb.  At the
other end of the group, Petacchi gets squeezed off, enjoying probably
his last day in the Maglia Rosa.  Before the GpM, Fredy Gonzalez makes a
drastic sprint to take the points while the Kelme rider shadowing him
nearly stacks into the barriers as he misjudges the corner, losing out
on any points as other slip past him.

Pozzi roars up to join Gonzalez on a breakaway down the short descent.
He gaps Gonzalez as they strak downhill, but radically misjudges a
corner and locks up the brakes, breaking into a two-wheel sideways slide
before being unceremoniously dumped onto the dirt on the side of the
road.  He gets up in time to grab the end of the peleton, but he won't
be breaking away again today.

The climb begins to bite and a huge shuffling occurs - riders break into
several groups, and the cameras switch quckly between riders who may be
broken or breaking away. Julio Perez gets promptly dropped from the
first group, and Pantani seems to be struggling a bit, though it's
difficult to see how far back.

Vini Caldorolo now drives the pace, splitting the group settling the
riders into a few new and different sets.  But this is the serious
group, and up front Garzelli follows the wheel of Eddy Mazzoini, who is
ticking over the pedals in a savage pace, while Gilberto Simoni notches
into Garzelli's hip pocket with a powerful looking cadence.

The group off the front consists of
8 - Andrea Noe - Alessio
9 - Franco Pellizotti - Alessio (with the biggest hair in the peleton)
11 - Pavel Tonkov - CCC Plsat
117 - Raimondas Rumsas - Lampre
127 - Yaralsav Popovych - Landbouwkredeit-Colnago
151 - Giberto Simoni - Saeco
154 - Marius Saballauskas  - Saeco
185 - Stefano Garzelli - Vini Caldirola
188 - Eddy Mazzoleni - Vini Caldirola

No big insane pitches on obscure narrow roads - today we get a wide road
and steady pitch. The riders roll under the 10 km to banner, now
seriously onto the climb.  The lead group have got a decent gap up on
the struggling chasers, and Pantani leads the third group about 6
seconds behind the second.  With a steady cadence, his group begins to
absorb a few stragglers from the second bunch.

Casagrande seems to be in the second group on the road, but he doesn't
seem to be pedaling with an authority to regain the leaders.

Up front, Garzelli ticks over a big gear, and sits pushed way back on
his saddle, while Simoni rises out of the saddle for a bit.  Mazzoleni
is just driving the pace at a torrid rate.

Somewhere down the mountain, Fassa Bortolo riders seem to be suffering a
bit, laden down from the effort of guarding the Maglia Rosa for the past
   5 stages.  A couple of riders now are pacing a strained looking Aitor
Gonzalez.

The pace picks up a bit, with Saeco's Saballauskas now leading Simoni
ahead of the Mazzoleni/Garzelli pair.  Pelizotti gets chopped off the
back, and watches the strongmen move away.

Simoni makes a hard move in front of everyone, telegraphing his punch so
that anyone with binocular vision can see it, and he immediately cuts
the up the road.  Garzelli immediately grabs his wheel and a couple
others light out after the serious attack - Popovych and Noe, with
Tonkov.   They hang on briefly, then only Garzelli and Tonkov remain,
then only Garzelli. Simoni hammers out of the saddle moving hard,
driving the pace as Garzelli just sits behind, ticking off cadence in
the big gear as he matches the pace.

Noe hooks up with Tonkov, now about 10 seonds back and falling.
Popovych is not showing up on the camers, but it seems he hasn't dropped
as far back as Pelizotti.

So two riders who were ejected from last years Giro now lead the race,
and they are only 4 km from the finish.  Noe finds new legs and moves
away from Tonkov and can again just see the two leaders.  Wreckage falls
behind them - Casagrande, Pantani, Frigo, Perez, Aitor
Gonzalez....dropping ever backward on this power climb.

Garzelli and Simoni ride side by sid as they continue to climb.  Simoni
looks over to take a good long look at Garzelli, who obviously didn't
read the press releases for Simoni's victory.

Now Andrea Noe moves himself back up to the lead pair, riding a slightly
higher cadence.  Tifosi run gasping alongside them, jiggling and
yelling.  So far, no sign of the Simoni Hooligans.

Again Simoni moves hard out of the saddle, quickly burning off Noe, but
Garzelli just hammers the gear from his set back, in the saddle
position.  Garzelli has continued to match his fforts, but has yet to
rise out of the saddle.  Noe grinds back up to them again.  Phil and
Paul both claim that Garzelli is suffering, but it seems more like a
difference of styles.

As they pass under the red kite, Garzelli rise up slightly and finds an
out of the saddle cadence he likes for about 10 pedal strokes, before
sitting back down and thumping out his rhythm.  He continues to keep
Simoni in his sight, while Noe hangs on somehow, with perhaps a bit of
blood leaking into his sweat.

As they draw around a sweeping bend a couple hundred meters from the
finish, Simoni begins his accelleration toward the line, but as soon as
the he makes his acclleration, Garzelli swoops past him and punches to
the forefront, beating him to the line with enough daylight to sit up
and salute the crowd. Noe drifts in on the slipstream.

The leaders found out some hard truths today, and the cameras find
Casagrande laboring toward the finish nearly more than two minutes and
thirty seconds down.  Pantani shuttles in with a group 3:45 behind the
victors. First blood has been drawn.

Stage 7
1 - Stefano Garzelli - 3:55:19
2 - Gilberto Simoni - ST
3 - Andrea Noe - @ :02
4 - Pavel Tonkov - @ :14
5 - Eddy Mazzoleni - Vini Caldirola - @ :37
6 - Marius Sabaliauskas - Saeco - @ :38
7 - Raimondas Rumsas - Lampre - @ :38
8 - Franco Pellizotti -  - @ :53
9 - Yaraslav Popovych - Landbouwkredeit-Colnago - @:59
10 - Julio Perez - Ceremich-Panaria - @ 1:21


Overall Classification

Maglia Rosa - Garzelli
2 - Simoni - @ :31
3 - Noe - @ :44
4 - Sabaliauskas - @ 1:28
5 - Pellizotti @ 1:36
6 - Tonkov @ 1:40
7 - Rumsas @ 1:54
8 - Popovych @ 1:56
9 - Georg Totschnig - Gerolsteiner @ 2:16
10 - Mazzoeni @ 3:02

GpM (Green Jersey) - Fredy Gonzalez

Tomorrow:
Stage 8 - Rieti - Arezzo
Back to the flats - can mighty Mario find his legs and speed?






20 km left, and the