Giro stages 20 & 21 – Silandro to Tre Cime di Lavaredo & Riese Pio X to Brescia
One of the recurring themes of this years Giro, if not the entire season so far, has been the (unseasonal) weather. Perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised anyone for it to have snowed in the Alps and the Dolomites, but heavy snowfall in the run up to and morning of Stage 19 saw its cancellation. With earlier stages effected by the route changing or being shortened, losing what had promised to be one of, if not the most iconic climbing stage was a massive blow. Probably the only rider in the peloton unhappy about getting an additional rest day was Vincenzo Nibali. Although he had dominated the second time trial, the chances to demonstrate his superiority via a stage win shrank by half with the loss of the Stelvio and Gavia from the race.
RCS wouldn’t have asked for the story that did come to dominate the day instead; Danilo Di Luca’s positive EPO test announced at almost the same time as stage getting cancelled. Di Luca was without a team at the start of the season and the was only 72 hours between the test being carried out and the announcement that he would be riding for Vini Fantini at the Giro. His attempts to animate the race, if not pick up a stage win had fizzled out pretty quickly so an immediate conclusion to draw was; doping to what advantage? Di Luca himself was pretty tight lipped. There was talk of ‘B’ samples to be checked. His team were more decisive, sacking him on the spot. The comments, from those members of the peloton that chose to, was (at least) unequivocal in condemming Di Luca as an example of once a doper always a doper. On a scientific note, the positive test was carried in a German lab where rumour has it that micro dosing of EPO can be established. If this is fact rather than speculation it raises a couple of interesting points. One, in the doping ‘arms race’, are the testers edging ahead of the cheats finally? Two, was this a rider of a previous generation unable to race without taking performance enhancing drugs or not sophisticated enough to avoid detection?
After losing the previous days stage and the dread of a doping story the likelihood was that the organisers would have run any kind of stage the following day. To circumvent the worst of the weather the stage stayed in the valleys before taking in the climb to Tre Cime di Lavaredo. Although this resulted in 90% of the stage feeling pretty dull, the final kilometres more than made up for it. In fact, the route climbed steadily for most of the day, although the gradient was barely noticeable most of the time. As the km’s clicked up the temperature began to fall and the riders began to add the layers. The contrast between the conditions at the start of the stage and at the finish line gave the appearance of two separate races held on two separate days.
For Vincenzo Nibali this was his last chance to cement, barring accidents, overall victory with a stage win. While the previous years winner, the now departed Ryder Hesjedal was recognised as a great champion, his win had been achieved without an individual stage success. For Nibali, the sense was a stage win would provide the required backdrop. His Astana teammates, who got stronger as the race went on got him into a great position for the final climb, emphasised by their own high placings at the finish. As the weather closed in, Nibali just seemed to get stronger with only one of his GC rivals, Rigoberto Uran who finished nearly 20 seconds down, in touch at the finish. Cadel Evans had looked broken on the stage, although he later cited a mechanical that caused him to give up his second place overall to Uran. It was a good day all round for Colombian riders with Carlos Betancur and Fabio Duarte finishing 1,2,3 (in fact 4, 3, 2 respectively) behind Nibali. He could smile through the cold as he took part in three separate presentations (he also took over the points jersey from Mark Cavendish) knowing that he had all but won the 2013 Giro.
The final stage of the Giro, unlike the Tour, is not run neutralised. With the destination of most of the jerseys resolved however, the peloton seemed happy enough to cruise into Brescia on the last day. No champagne or even prosecco was in evidence although there were some pizza deliveries being made from the team cars. Vincenzo Nibali was resplendent in pink, happy to up the quotient to socks and helmet if not to make any changes to his bike which stayed resolutely white and blue throughout the race. Carlos Betancur had ridden into the young riders jersey the previous day, which left just the Maglia Rosso points jersey up for grabs.
Mark Cavendish had been in and out of the points lead for the three weeks of the race. We had touched on the difficulties for a sprinter to win the points competition at the Giro in our Giro preview, going so far as to say that the challenge would probably see Cavendish abandon before the mountains. A look at his rivals for the jersey indicated the challenge; Nibali, Evan, Betancur etc. If he could take both intermediate sprints on the final stage, Cavendish would be back in the lead and virtually assured of taking the Maglia Ross0. A flash of the legendary Cavendish temper ahead of the second sprint. As the peloton began their laps of the Brescia circuit a lone Andrioni rider made a break. Cavendish having reached a gentlemen’s agreement with Nibali that he (Nibali) wouldn’t race for the points, shot off in angry pursuit. Cue much gesticulation and no doubt profanity as attempts to marshal the recalcitrant wild card rider back to the group, Cavendish forced to sprint hard for the line.
On the second lap, another Cavendish sprint and general cussedness as the line was crossed; what was the cause of all of his frustration. The guilty culprit appeared to be the roadbook, certainly Omega Pharm at least didn’t appear to know at what distance the second intermediate fell. All of this was forgetten fortunately when it really mattered as Cavendish easily overhauled the much depleted from three weeks of hard racing sprint field. Elia Viviani probably the only recognised first line sprinter left to rival Cavendish at the death.
And so to the celebrations. Nibali emotional, yet dignified also. Hard to appear so in the hot pink throne that the organisers placed centre stage for him. Cavendish all smiles, 2012 avenged and one a select few riders to have won the points competition in all three grand tours. Betancur, winner of the young riders jersey a great prospect for the future, but here and now celebrating a relatively unsupported result; AG2R finishing the race with only four other riders.
Giro 2013 – postscript
VCSE always tipped Vincenzo Nibali for the GC ahead of Bradley Wiggins. The spike in the popularity of cycling as a sport in the UK is largely fueled by Wiggins stellar 2012. It’s unfortunate, but somewhat inevitable also that this also polarises a lot of the coverage the sport gets in the UK mainstream media. It’s a good thing that, for example, the BBC covered the Giro the same way it would cover the Tour this year. It’s less positive that the lens through which everything got covered was Wiggins shaped. In fairness VCSE gave up on the daily BBC podcast for just this reason after about stage 4 or 5, so if the tone changed; mea culpa. The focus on Sir Bradley, as the BBC insisted on calling him, across the majority of the media in the UK meant that the reasons to celebrate British success (of which there were plenty) felt airbrushed from coverage more concerned with Wiggins descending difficulties.
The VCSE argument against a Wiggins victory in this years Giro was based on his relative to 2012 poor form coming into the race. Compared to the previous year where he had won pretty much everything he entered, in 2013 Wiggins didn’t have so much as a podium place to celebrate. Sure, things didn’t always go his way; the mechanical on the queen stage of the Trentino, his last race before the Giro a good example. The only crumb on offer was the line offered from Sky that his ‘numbers’ were “better than last year” or that he was climbing better than ever.
With the benefit of hindsight Wiggins climbing wasn’t the issue. There were some surface cracks in the Sky gameplan when their team leader seemed to lack protection that would have prevented him losing time in the early stages due to other riders accidents. Things fell apart on stage 7 with Wiggins inoccuous looking slide on the descent into Pescara. In the wet conditions that seemed to become the default for the rolling stages, Wiggins remounted but proceeded at a snails pace. Nibali had suffered a slide of his own on the same descent, but the difference in the speed in which he remounted and then got on with things compared to his then joint GC favourite was palpable.
Sky would have expected to go into the first TT with Wiggins positioned to take the GC lead. Although the parcours was not particularly friendly to him, his testing abilities should have given Wiggins the platform to put time into his rivals. Instead, he suffered another mechanical and didn’t gel with his replacement bike, a completely different model. In spite of his bad luck and difficulties with his second bike this was perhaps Wiggins high point in the race. After the inevitable time loss at the first time check he recorded the fastest time over the second (longer) section. Although denied the stage win, Wiggins was back in contention. Unfortunately, the following day the rain was back and with it his descending woes. At one point Wiggins was out the back, but a massive turn from the Sky diesel domestiques got him back to Nibali’s group by the finish. Stage 10, the first summit finish was the big test to see Wiggins could hold onto Nibali who had gone into the lead after the TT. As things turned out Wiggins lost more time on the stage won by teammate Rigoberto Uran. With ramps of 20% in places VCSE’s view is that Wiggins performance on the stage was pretty strong for a rider who climbs at a steady rate, rather than with explosive accelerations. He lost time on the steepest sections, but was coming back at the finish, certainly fairing better on the climb than some his rivals.
Wiggins didn’t lose time the following day, but by the end of stage 12 he was gone. A difficult day where he lost time in heavy rain and the virus he had been suffering from getting worse led to Wiggins departure and Rigoberto Uran’s elevation to team leader. Uran had already leapfrogged his erstwhile team leader on GC at this point and he had unwittingly pointed to what would become the Wiggins narrative following his withdrawl when he (Uran) described himself as “..not like Froome”. There had been speculation before the Giro about what Wiggins would do at the Tour. Wiggins had fueled some of this himself when he declared in an interview that he wanted to lead Sky at the Tour and defend his title. In the week between the end of the Giro and the start of the Dauphine the story rolls on.
Vincenzo Nibali would probably be the first to admit his overall victory would have been enhanced by a fit Bradley Wiggins. Some may feel his achievement was also diminished by the enforced route changes and even cancellation of one stage. This would do him a disservice. Nibali looked the class of the GC field from the outset and while his team looked to have rode into some good form by the end of the race to support him during the final days, Nibali is the kind of rider who is well capable of looking after himself. His next target, supposedly is the Vuelta a race he has won before. Last years Vuelta top 3 were missing from the Giro, but if Nibali can maintain this form he should be a genuine contender for Spain’s grand tour.
The weather and viruses that swept through the peloton caused an attrition rate of nearly 20% including defending champion Ryder Hesjedal. This years Giro was a race to be endured rather than enjoyed. An ambitious and exciting parcours that included climbs of the Telegraphe and Galibier in France as well as the Stelvio and Gavia deserved to be raced and will hopefully feature again, although probably not next year. The doping story was an unfortunate reminder of the darker side of Italian racing, but the way it was handled by the organisers and the effected team gives confidence of the new attitude to drugs in the sport.
There was more British success with Alex Dowsett’s victory in the first TT. Dowsett moved to Movistar from Sky at the beginning of the year and his new team could justifiably claim to be the team of the Giro with stage wins for Giovanni Visconti and Benat Intxausti also.
Bradley Wiggins departure from the Giro spoiled the plans of much of the UK medias editorial which missed an arguably greater British achievement at the race. Mark Cavendish took 5 stage wins on the way to becoming only the fifth rider to win the points classification in all three grand tours. He had to overcome the equal weighting for points finishes on each stage in the Giro as well as getting himself over the climbs. Bradley Wiggins will always be the first British winner of the Tour de France but our greatest stage racer is Mark Cavendish.
Related articles
- VCSE’s Giro d’Italia Preview (veloclubsudeglise.com)
Velo Club Sud Eglise 