[Giro 2003]Stage 13 - Recovery and Attacks

[Giro Reporter]

Stage 13 - Pordenone to Marostica - 149 km

The course undulates just a bit today, but the warm weather and clear
skies portend a day of recovery from the brutal finishing climb of
yesterday's Zoncolon.  The riders will complete the day's stage with
three laps of a large circuit in the countryside around the finishing town.

As the miles work their way into the legs of the racers, it would seem
that the challengers to the Maglia Rosa are improving into the 2nd half
of the Giro.  Casagrande looked more powerful yesterday than he had at
the start, while Garzelli continues to show fire even after being out of
   racing for the last twelve montsh.

Simoni says that his efforts yesterday came when he wasn't having a
great day.  Whether that's more of his lip service remains to be seen.
I don't know how anyone could average more than his 11 mph up that wall
of a climb yesterday and call it an off day.

We catch up with the riders as they have about 57 km to go. There are a
few more riders who may well be watching on television as well, with
retirees from yesteday Christian Moreni nursing a broken collarbone, and
Paolo Tiralongo mending a cracked vertabrae.

Dropped from the list of active riders are Carlos Garcia Quesada from
Kelme and Mykahlo Khalilov from Columbia-Selle Italia, who came in
after the time limit, which has got to suck.

Only 7 teams now out of 19 who have a full squad.

Two more riders fold up their tents on the roadway today, as Tenax
riders Mirko Marini and Mauro Zanetti call it quits.

Temperatures have edged up toward 90 degrees today, on a beautiful day
in northern Italy. The remaining riders have called a bit of a truce,
and enjoy the sun and warm temperatures as they roll along trying to
recover some feeling in their legs.

Moreno Di Biase took the maximum points in the early InterGiro point,
with Jan Svorado taking second and Magnus Backstedt in third. That keeps
Backstedt behind Di Biase in the competiton, and he slips a few seconds
back.

Once reaching the town, the riders will make three large circuits of
town (3 Giri al termine). There are still about 48 km to go.

Director of the Tour de France, Jean-Marie LeBlanc is coming down to
visit the Giro today. He is reputed to be meeting with the directors of
Domina-Vacanze. Perhaps not all of the chance has leaked out of their
bid to be in the centenary edition of the race this July.

  From our view over the town, we see the huge outdoor chess board used
in the annual outdoor festival, in which humans are used as the pieces.

The circuit has a bit of a bump in it, with GpM points for the second
circuit. It's listed as a 2.2 km, 856 meter climb, with a 9% bit at the
base, averaging out at about 4%.

Fakta's Kurt Arvesen moves strongly away from the front of the bunch as
they move onto the climb. A Kelme rider moves into the gap while Fassa
Bortolo ticks out a tempo to bring the bunch up at a steady cadence.
They gather things back together just before the crest of the climb.  No
points at this time, but the next time up this switchback ascent, the
climbers who have their eyes on the GpM jesey will sharpen their knives.

The peleton has streched a bit, as a few riders continue to push their
noses out into the wind to break things up.  With the squads of Fassa
Bortolo and Lampre driving the pace, a few groups who had finding their
legs a bit chunky on the climb are pacing through the team cars, trying
to reattach in mixed team groups.  Lampre has actually found themselves
at the head of the team competition yesterday, with the finishes of
Casagrande and Rumsas.

Here's a Giro trivia quesion:
What rider had the most stage victories in a single Giro D'Italia?

A Selle Italia rider -  Rafaele Illiano notches up the pace and moves
away off the front - teammate and GpM leader Fredy Gonzalez snaps right
up on his wheel, while Fortunato Baliani of Formaggi Pinzolo Fiave goes
with them as they aim for theh maximum GpM points on this somewhat
minimal climb.  Baliani hangs in at third as Gonzalez sits right behind
his teammate.

The main field is driven by Pantani's Mercatoni Uno squadra - Illiano
drops off and Gonzalez leads out Baliani.  Baliani has made a move, gets
a quick gap over Gonzalez, but may have misjudged the seriousness of the
little climber from the Columbia Selle Italia squad.  Gonzalez sweeps
back up to the cheese-boy and moves past him, nicking the maximum points
at the line by a half bike length.   As soon as they hit the line,
Gonzalez gives him a serious finger-wagging reminder of who the GpM
points should belong to.  He carries the lesson forward for another 100
meters or so, making the point, that if Baliani had wanted to get
serious about the GpM, he should have started duking it out much earlier
in the race.

But, Baliani has a different plan, and extends his effort to gain a
break from the bunch on the descent, finding himself 12 seconds or so as
he rumbles under the 20 km to go banner. Although joined by another
rider, the lead is doomed, with the bunch grabbing them before they can
even work on their victory speech.

In the last circuit of the course, the Mercatone Uno team hammers at the
front, completely stretching the peleton in the streets of the town.

The peleton come onto the base of the climb and Stefano Garzelli fires
out and away on the incline.  Race leder Gilberto Simoni responds
immediately, and Marco Pantani chases out of the main group.  It is a
move to which all of the serious contenders must respond, and Yaraslav
Popovych of Landbouwkrediet-Colnago, Scarponi from Domina-Vacanze and
Fassa Bortolo's Dario Frigo are in the mix, which swells to about 15-20
riders.

On the far side of the hill, Frigo slowly ticks over a massive gear and
zips up his jersey for the quick descent, planning on making his time
trialing skills work for him. There's about 7 km to the finish from
where he is.  But, he doesn't look super-confident as he eases around a
few horseshoe turns at speeds that would make our eyes water..

Three riders at the tail of the peleton tumble on the descent - a Saeco
rider, perhaps a Formaggi Trentini rider and perhaps a Ceramiche-Panaria
rider.  The replay shows that the Saeco rider just managed to slide uner
the guardrail between the posts.  Nasty business.

Gerolsteiner's Georg Totschnig uses some serious descending skills to
nip back up to Frigo, who actually is not the grandest at using gravity.
Totschnig is a pretty mean time trialist himself, so there are some
skills at the front.

Frigo and Totschnig find themselves about 7 seconds away from the select
group of leaders and GC contenders.  Now on the flat roads, a couple of
   Saeco riders assemble to lead Simoni back up to the challengers.

Graziano Gasparre of De Nardi-Colpack fires away and gets halfway across
the gap as the leaers group dink around arguing about who needs to take
up the pace.  For some reason, Saeco thinks that the Fassa Bortolo
riders should take up the pace, forgetting who is up the roadway.

Frigo begins to soft pedal a bit, as the word comes over his earpiece
that his team's ciclamina-jersey-wearing-points-competition-leading
Allessandro Petacchi is ready to rumble in the group.  Sensing the drop
in the pace, Gasparre tries a move to escape, but the Fassa Bortolians
grab him and absorb him like an amoeba.  Some errant zebras move into
the top ten spots, perhaps feeling as though they can launch Giovanni
Lombardi, now freed from the requirements of leading out Mario Cipollini.

They move around a minor chicane, Petacchi sits in at the 5th position,
with two teammates at the head of the group as they scream through the
widening roadway.  The last Fassa Bortolian peels away at about 400 km
to go, and an unnamed zebra does his best Giovanni Lombardi imitation.
Lombardi is at third wheel, but chaos begins to reign as the teams
spread across the wide avenue.

Before Lombardi can make his accelleration, Petacchi moves hard to his
left and gains a gap, moving ahead as Lombardi's leadout man peels off.
Lombardi moves hard, but cannot make up the gap as other riders swarm
towards him.  Petacchi edges over as he continues to accellerate, but
there doesn't seem to be any impeding of the other riders, who are now
too far behind to contest the finish.  Petacchi rolls over the finish,
arms aloft for his fourth stage of this year's Giro D'Italia.

Just behind, Garzelli pips into third spot, which gives him an 8 second
time bonus, and he edges up toward Simoni again.  As I said earlier, he
is riding as intelligently as anyone in the group. There's another beefy
climbing day tomorrow, followed by the first time trial on the next day.
Eight seconds may loom large before all is said and done.

It looks like that may not have been Lombardi in the mix on the final
runup, as the results instead list Daniele Bennati as the second place
finisher.

Stage 13 -
1 - Alessandro Petacchi - Fassa Bortolo - 3:38:58
2 - Daniele Bennati - Domina Vacane
3 - Stefano Garzelli - Caldirola-Sidermec
4 - Lorenzo Bernucci - Landbouwkrediet-Colnago
5 - Eddy Mazzoleni - Caldirola-Sidermec

All riders at s.t.

Overall -
Maglia Rosa - Gilberto Simoni - Saeco - 60h 59:16
2 - Garzelli - @ :36
3 - Andrea Noe - 2:23
4 - Yaraslav Popovych - 3:00
5 - Francesco Casagrande - 4:14
6 - Raimondas Rumsas - 4:20
7 - Georg Totschnig - 4:42
8 - Pellizotti - 4:49


Tomorrow's Stage -
Stage 14 - Marostica - Alpe Pampeago - 162 km
A serious day of climbing and suffering lies tomorrow.  Three peaks in
the middle of the course, all of which are in the 2,000 meter
neighborhood, then a chilling descent before a final 8 km climb up the
steep Alpe di Pampeago.

Giro trivia answer:

That'd be Alfredo Binda in 1927 with 12 wins.