And the winner is... Alberto Contador!

As predictable, the victory in the general classification of the 2011 Giro d'Italia went to the Spaniard Alberto Contador, the strongest GT rider of the world. Eventual second was Michele Scarponi, who managed to protect his placement also today. Third instead was Vincenzo Nibali, 'the Shark', whereas 4th was John Gadret.
Talking about the last stage, it was won by Millar, who also got advantage from Alex Rasmussen's misfortune. The HTc Columbia rider in fact punctured in the last part of race and decided not to change his wheel. In the end, the poor thing lost the stage for just 7 seconds.
Here you have the Top 20 of the race:
1 Alberto Contador Velasco (Esp)
2 Michele Scarponi (Ita) 0:06:10
3 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) 0:06:56
4 John Gadret (Fra) 0:10:04
5 Joaquin Rodriguez (Esp) 0:11:05
6 Roman Kreuziger (Cze) 0:11:28
7 José Rujano (Ven) 0:12:12
8 Denis Menchov (Rus) 0:12:18
9 Steven Kruijswijk (Ned) 0:13:51
10 Kanstantin Sivstov (Blr) 0:14:10
11 Mikel Nieve (Esp) 0:16:08
12 Hubert Dupont (Fra) 0:18:06
13 Dario Cataldo (Ita) 0:18:23
14 David Arroyo (Esp) 0:26:56
15 Christophe Le Mevel (Fra) 0:32:08
16 Johan Tschopp (Swi) 0:35:20
17 Matteo Carrara (Ita) 0:37:08
18 Igor Anton (Esp) 0:37:39
19 Paolo Tiralongo (Ita) 0:38:21
20 Tiago Machado (Por) 0:39:59

So, another Giro is over. Personally I found it boring, although some of the stages were really exciting. For example, I loved the stage won by De Clerq and the Zoncolan stage. However, I think that the stages that will always remain in our hearts will be the one from Rapallo to Reggio Emilia and the one from Quarto to Livorno. As the supporters have said for the last 3 weeks, '108 presente'.

So, dear readers, what are your opinions? Did you like this year Giro? And what was your favourite stage (if you had one)?
This post is really short, but I'm preparing a better one that will be ready in the next days... In the meanwhile, let's wish the riders a well deserved period of holiday!!

(Pic by Bettini)

San Pellegrino, Macugnaga and Sestriere before the last stage:

After two days spent between San Pellegrino and Bergamo, stalking Smiley Menchov and bringing bad luck to Pinotti and Lewis, here I'm back again, resuming the last 3 stages of the race.

Morbegno- San Pellegrino Terme
Pinotti and the other Bergamask riders really wanted to win this stage, which ended in a villagethat is famous worldwide because of its mineral water. Actually, at the beginning of the 19th century San Pellegrino was also a very famous holiday location and its 'Grand Hotel' hosted members of the Romanoff and of the Savoia families, as well as celebrities like Maria Callas and Federico Fellini, the football players of Helenio Herrera's Inter and Italian poets like Quasimodo and Montale.
Anyway, back to the Giro. Amongst the Bergamasks who tried their luck on Thursday there were Carrara, Vanotti and Pinotti. Possoni remained hidden in the peloton, whereas the Sicilian Tiralongo decided to attack too (he lives near San Pellegrino as well).
The first hour of race was really fast (the riders had an average speed of 53 kmph) because everyone wanted to enter a breakaway. Eventually, in Bergamo Alta some riders managed to escape from the peloton. They were Carlos Sastre (he's aliveeee!), Oscar Gatto, Gianluca Brambilla, Russel Downing, Bram Tankink, Jerome Pineau, Paolo Tiralongo, Marco Pinotti, Kevin Seeldraeyers, Jan Bakelandts and Eros Capecchi.
On Passo Ganda (and not 'Gandalf') just Seeldrayers, Capecchi and Pinotti managed to remain at the head of the race. The trio reached San Pellegrino with a minute of advantage on Brambilla and Tiralongo, so they had a lot of time to 'study' each other. In the end, the victory was decided by a sprint, won by Capecchi.
This was the first professional victory for Eros, who comes from a family of farmers and who, according to Gazzetta, is 'so handsome that every day even the podium misses turn their heads towards him as he rides towards the start'. Eros gave us a very emotional moment after the stage, when he burst into tears after remembering his grandfather, who died 5 years ago, and his cousin Rudi, who died last winter at 18.In the meanwhile, Pinotti did look disappointed, but he was also very happy because the people on the road (including the 5 inhabitants of Tagliata, one of the least populated village of Italy) supported him in a great way.
I'll just tell you that, when he reached the spot where I was staying, I screamed 'Go go Marco!!!' as loud as I could. In spite of my effort (and in spite of hurting one of my vocal chords while doing that), I couldn't even hear my voice, such was the noise made by the crowd. And then, as soon as we got the news of Capecchi's victory, everyone stopped screaming and talking. But still, we were all very proud and happy - both for Pinotti and for Eros.

Bergamo - Macugnaga:
On the following day, me went to the start in Bergamo. Amongst the riders I saw there were Pinotti and Lewis, who were really kind with me and with the other supporters. I got Craig's autograph (he was really nice with me) and I wished Marco good luck, happy because I had also managed to take a pic with him.
However, as soon as I got home I learned that Marco had broken his 'acetabolo', which is the part of the femur that ends in the pelvis. Ooops...
A few seconds later, my dad told me that also an American teammate of Marco had crashed. 'What? Don't tell me...It wasn't Lewis, right?', I asked, worried. 'No, it wasn't. Or perhaps...No no, you're right, it was Craig Lewis, he broke his femur', he said, putting an end to my hopes. Well, at least now I know that I'll have to avoid the HTC bus for a lot of time now :P
The Macugnaga stage saw the victory of Tiralongo, who eventually got his first (deserved) victory as a pro at the tender age of 34. For that result he really has to thank His Majesty Contador, who let him win the stage (Alberto and Paolo are really good friends).
Contador yesterday had a very good reason to be happy, since his trial has been postponed. Therefore Riis is already talking about bringing him to the Tour, causing great despair amongst cycling fans, who don't want to see Alberto ruling another Grand Tour in such a boring way

Verbania-Sestriere:

Today's stage was another tough one. The riders had to face Colle delle Finestre, where Savoldelli won the 2005 Giro. Colle delle Finestre is about 20 kms long, has 45 (45!) hairpin turns and it isn't completely asphalted. The scenery, as usual, was great, although I don't know how some supporters could watch the race from the top of the mountains.
The riders who went on a breakaway this afternoon were Yaroslav Popovych, Kevin Seeldrayers (again!), Eduard Vorganov (who didn't pull a meter), Angel Vicioso, Frederik Veuchelen, Luca Mazzanti, Josep Jufre, Vasil Kiryienka, Sebastian Lang, Cristiano Salerno, Diego Ulissi (this time it was him who complained about Vorganov's lack of collaboration, and not the opposite), Carlos Betancourt (the youngest rider of the race) and Miguel Minguez.
On Colle delle Finestre Kiryenka abandoned his companions, whereas Szmyd set the pace at the front of the peloton (welcome back at the front, Sylwester!). Rujano attacked a lot of times and eventually managed to escape the group of the best riders. He wasn't the only one who absolutely wanted to break free this afternoon. In fact, Kruijswijk often attacked in order to annoy (and possibly drop) Kreuziger, while Gadret wanted to drop Nibali and Menchov attacked in order to improve his GC placement (no, I didn't wish him good luck when I saw him the other day :P).
Eventually, the ones who got the worst consequences from this stage were Sivstov and Nieve. Poor Kanstantin arrived 9 minutes after the winner, whereas Nieve arrived 1 minute before him. However, we must point out that the winner, aka the amazing Kiryenka, won with 6 minutes of advantage on Contador, Scarponi and the other GC riders.
Vasil was really moved towards the finish-line and he dedicated his victory to his fallen teammate Tondo (*sobs*). After the stage, Kiryenka admitted that he had worn his looking glasses in order to hide the tears.
Vasil is a really good rider and I think one can't help liking him. This rider from Belarus in fact has a very tough past, since in 1986 he lived near Chernobyl. As a consequence of the nuclear disaster, he lost both his parents and his brother. And the other day, he even lost a teammate. "This was the best way to remember a teammate that was with us only for this season, but yet seemed to have been here for so much time,” Kiryenka said after the stage. “We decided that the best form to pay him tribute was staying into the Giro, and I think we made a good choice because winning in such a hard mountain stage and from such a long break, it was a kind of winning that he liked so much”. Joaquim Rodriguez, interviewed after the race, didn't feel like commenting about Xavier's death, since he was a very close friend of his. Back to the race, Kruijswijk, Gadret and Scarponi managed to gain a few seconds on Nibali and Kreuziger. This last rider made me close my eyes a few times during the descent from Colle delle Finestre, since he really risked a lot there.
Second in the stage (4'43" down on Kiryenka) was Rujano, whereas third was the promising Betancourt. Dupont (yes, I know you're all rooting for him now) was 12th, Brambilla 13th and Nieve 17th. 64 riders ended the race 42" after the winner.

So, these were the last 3 stages of the race. Tomorrow there will be the last stage of the Corsa Rosa, which is taking place in Milan (I can't go, desperation!). Let's hope it'll be an exciting one! (and please Denis, do not crash, really, I don't want a heart attack!)
Pic 1 by Sirotti, 2 by Scanferla, 3 by Bettini

Italian polemics at the Giro, random news and more:

Two days after her last post, miss Fede is ready to write a new one. She couldn't watch yesterday's ITT, but she knows who won and she knows that there weren't many surprises. On the other hand, she did manage to watch today's stage, which saw a rider making one of the most dangerous things she's ever seen. Anyway, let's start from the beginning.
Today the riders had to face Passo Tonale and Passo Aprica. The descent from this last climb ended with 7 kms to go and people thought that Nibali might have tried something there. Moreover, every expert said that today's stage was perfect for those who wanted to go on a breakaway in order to get a victory. That's why, after just 55 kms, a very large group of riders had already broken clear of the peloton. These athletes were the Italian champion Giovanni Visconti (who's had serious knee problems in the last two weeks), his teammate Leonardo Giordani (who worked a lot at the front of the breakaway), Christophe Le Mevel, Hubert Dupont, Jan Bakelants (a hero!), Robert Kiserlovski, Kanstanstin Sivtsov (who wanted to improve his GC)), Jesus Hernandez, Ben Gastauer, Pablo Lastras, Diego Ulissi, Eduard Vorganov, Alberto Losada, Mathias Frank, Fabio Taborre and Addy Engels.
These riders had a maximum advantage of about 8 minutes and arrived on the top of Aprica with more than 3 minutes of advantage on the rest of the peloton. Liquigas, Lampre and Geox worked hard to gain time on the 16 men, but they didn't succeed.
On the Aprica descent both Kiserlovski and Frank looked very uncomfortable, whereas Lastras showed that, as well as being a very good sprinter, a very good climber and a very good Classic rider, he's also a very good downhill rider.
As said, people expected an attack by Nibali, but Popovych went at the head of the peloton during the Aprica downhill and nothing happened. Therefore the main part of peloton quietly rolled towards the finish-line, arriving 3 minutes after the winner.
With 3 kms to go, Bakelandts, Visconti, Lastras and Ulissi got a small gap on their adversaries. In the final 2 kms Visconti looked really nervous (he kept on turning his head backwards), whereas Ulissi and Bakelandts both tried to attack in the last 1500 meters of race. But still, they didn't have a lot of luck and they had to face Lastras and the Italian national champion in a sprint.
Poor Bakelandts had to start the final 'volata' and sat up as soon as Ulissi started the 'serious' sprint. At that point Visconti, who was on the right side of the road, suddenly moved to left, trying to follow the Lampre rider and to hide from the wind. On the other hand, Lastras was behind the two Italians, ready to outsprint them. However, soon it became clear that Visconti would have never been able to outsprint Ulissi: in fact there wasn't a lot of space between him and the barriers and Visconti, who isn't a pure sprinter, felt as if he was in a trap, although he was riding much faster than his companions. What did Giovanni do, then? Well, simple: he screamed at Ulissi twice, then he tried to push him to the left of the road. Considering that Ulissi didn't change his riding direction, Visconti pushed him again, this time with more anger. Ulissi was forced to go to the left, trying to recuperate his balance, whereas Visconti crossed the finish-line in first. Poor Lastras avoided hitting Ulissi from behind at the last moment and, in this all-Italian mess, he was the one who had the worst consequences. In fact, poor Pablo found himself third, after that he had to change his direction all of a sudden in order to avoid a serious crash. Right after the finish-line, no one looked happy. Visconti started talking with Lastras, whereas Ulissi, interviewed by Italian tv, said he didn't think he had done something wrong. Visconti, on the other hand, was really angry at Diego. “Sometimes the ones who decide to risk their own lives are the riders themselves, it's incredible! I shouted at Ulissi ten times to let me pass because I was going at twice the speed, but he closed me in against the barriers and, if I hadn’t raised my arm to push him far from me, I would have fallen. He's behaved in a very bad way during the whole day, he's been rude and it's not nice to see a young rider behaving like he did during the breakaway. Now I may be relegated to the last place, just because he wanted me to crash against the barriers. It's not fair!”, Giovanni said after the finish-line. He was very angry and probably still scared because he had risked to crash and hurt himself badly during the sprint.
In his defense, however, it must be said that there's a lot of pressure on him right now, that he's had big health problems in the first two weeks of Giro, that for his team this is the most important goal of the year and that he really wanted to win a stage in the Italian national jersey. Moreover, it must be said that he was interviewed right after the finish-line, when riders don't have the time to think about what they're saying.
After Visconti was relegated to third place (did Bulbarelli understand what the jury told him in French? That is question... :P), his ds decided to take part in 'Il Processo alla Tappa'. Farnese's ds, Luca Scinto, is a very peculiar person, since he always puts a lot of passion in whatever he does. Today he admitted that his rider had done something wrong, but he also said that Ulissi did change his direction during the sprint. "Therefore", Scinto said, "the jury should have given the victory to Lastras, and not to Diego".
A few minutes later, it was Ulissi's turn to arrive on the stage of 'Il Processo'. With his very nice accent, Diego explained how things went from his own point of view. “I tried to surprise the other riders by going early and I was always on the left hand side of the road, and I don’t think I really veered that much towards the barriers”, he said. Then, when asked about his behaviour in the breakaway, he was really honest. "I behaved in a cunning way, I admit it. My ds had told me not to take turns at the front, that's why I didn't work as much as the other riders. Btw, I wasn't the only one: also other 8 riders didn't pull very much. The Saxo Bank rider, for example (ndr; Hernandez), he didn't pull at all, perhaps because he had Contador in the oink jersey. However, I paid for my behaviour. In the first kms of breakaway in fact I argued with Vorganov, he said some bad things to me".
Then also Visconti went to 'Il Processo' and he said that he got angry too because of Ulissi's behaviour in the breakaway and that he thought that Diego was a bit too arrogant. "At a certain point", said Visconti, "I told him: 'If you keep on behaving like this, many riders won't consider a very nice guy anymore', and he thanked me for the advice". Luckily, in the end the two Italian riders made peace and Visconti said some very nice things. In fact right now there is a jersey worn by him during Etna stage on sale on EBay. "The money that people will spend to buy it", said Visconti, "will go to the family of a child who has a very bad disease. Thinking about all the parents that have children who suffer, and thinking about all the tragedies that occurred in cycling in the last weeks, well, it makes you understand that arguing for a victory really doesn't make sense at all. Things have gone this way, it's useless to talk about them now". Very wise words, said by a very young boy.

Talking about the poor Lastras, instead, I must say that I found it absolutely nice when Italian tv interviewed him. In fact they asked him what he thought about the sprint, whether he thought Ulissi should have been punished, whether he thought he should have deserved to win the stage and whether Movistar was going to protest against the jury's decision. In spite of all these question, Pablo always answered with the same: 'Non lo so' ('I don't know'), said with a big, shy smile and an embarassed face. Thinking about Movistar's problems and watching Pablo behaving in that way really made me want to go to Tirano and give a hug to him and to his teammates.

Back to Diego Ulissi, I think he didn't make any mistake in today's sprint and I agree with the jury's decision.
Personally, I like Diego because of different reasons. In fact he's strong, he's not afraid of anything (his arrogance towards the older riders show it), he's just 21, he's pretty and he also has a great accent. I could spend a whole day listening to him saying 'Horsa' rather than 'Corsa', and I think I'd pay a few euros to make him say 'una Coca Cola con la cannuccia' (I always melt when I hear people from Tuscany saying this sentence...).

Still talking about today's stage, here are two random things to point out: first of all, Matthew Wilson, my personal hero of the race, didn't finish today's stage.
'Who is Wilson?', some of you may ask. Well, Matthew is that great rider who was last in the general classification for a lot of stages. Now hat he's retired, I'm a very sad supporter.
Another (very fangirlistic) thing to point out, then, it's a recent discovery of mine (male readers can skip this part of the post, I don't have problems with it): Hubert Dupont is veeeery good-looking. Really, AG2R guys must do everything they can to bring both him and Nicolas Roche to the Tour de France. In that way, they could become Fangirl's second favourite team.
Ok, end of the fangirlistic part of the post. Now it's time for some random link and for a 'communication service':

RANDOM NEWS:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/contadors-mechanic-expelled-from-the-giro : A SB mechanic got expelled from the Giro after that, during yesterday's ITT, he opened the door of the team car in order to 'punish' a tifoso who, according to him, had tried to punch Contador. However, Alberto says that the tifosi are always very nice with him and that he loves us all (ok, I'm exaggerating). The mechanic instead said that yesterday Joaquim Rodriguez received a punch from a supporter and that on the Zoncolan the tifosi threw eggs at the SB riders/team cars (I've read two versions of the story). Now, this seems a little strange to me. I mean, the guys would have complained about an episode like that, wouldn't they? And then: isn't it a bit difficult to center a rider with an egg while he's riding? And about the team cars: they couldn't drive up Zoncolan behind the riders and I don't think someone followed SB car in order to throw eggs at it... :P

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/giro-ditalia-forced-to-change-milan-time-trial-course : The Milan elections, as well as causing an earthquake in Italian politics, have also forced the Giro organisers to change the route of the last stage of race. Now I'm seriously considering the chance of going to Milan to support both the riders and Pisapia.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/golas-withdraws-from-giro-ditalia-to-get-married : I wish all the best to Michal Golas and his fiancé Agata, who are getting married this weekend!

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tondos-funeral-to-be-held-today : DEP, Xavier :'(

COMMUNICATION SERVICE:
Dear readers, you all know that tomorrow's stage of the Giro arrives in San Pellegrino Terme.
Considering that the Giro is riding also through Bergamo, tomorrow many roads in the center of the city will be closed. 'A good chance to stay home from school', I thought. And instead no, because we Bergamasks love killing ourselves with work (everyone describes us as 'loyal people who work hard without complaining', whereas I describe ourselves as 'a bunch of crazy people who can't understand what the priorities in life are'), so tomorrow students will have to stay in the schools at least until 12.30 . Then, at that hour, all the students of the city will finally be free.
Now, just imagine this: all the people going to pick up their little children by car, all the students who get the bus to go home, all the teachers/people older than 18 who drive their cars outside town, all the workers who try coming back from work before the roads get closed. All together, at the same time of the day, in the center of the town. I predict problems. And I predict that it will be impossible to get out of the city before half past one.
'What about miss Fede then? Will she go to school or not?', I hear some of you ask. Well, to everyone's joy, miss Fede decided in November 2010 that she wouldn't have gone to school on the 26th and on the 27th of May 2011, so this afternoon she said 'See ya on Sunday!' to all her schoolmates, wished them good luck for tomorrow, predicted that they'll be struck in the biggest traffic jam every for a lot of time and then promised she would bring them some nice photos of the hottest cyclists. Oh yeah, because miss Fede tomorrow will be in San Pellegrino, rooting for every single cyclist who's still racing (Contador included), trying to take good pictures (it won't be easy) and forgetting about all her duties. Because, as Queen sang, 'Bicycles races are coming your way, so forget all your duties oh yeah'.

PS: No, I won't be posting anything tomorrow :P

Xavier Tondo Volpini, 5th of November 1978 - 23rd of May 2011

Exactly two weeks ago, Wouter Weylandt passed away on a Giro descent. This morning, Movistar's Xavier Tondo lost his life in a domestic accident.

Xavier Tondo Volpini passed away this morning, after that his garage door fell on him while he was preparing for a training ride together with his friend Intxausti.
I had to stop twice while reading this news on Cyclingnews because I couldn't realise what I was reading. My eyes were watching the words, but my brain couldn't understand them. 'Xavier Tondo died this morning'. Unbelievable. Dying in such a terrible way, when you're just 32, really makes no sense.
Xavier was a great rider, one of the best climbers of the world and one of the most honest guys in the peloton. He became a hero in December, when he told the Spanish police about a group of people who sold doping products.
Right now I really can't believe that Xavier has really died. I'm shocked, sad and confused and I'm waiting for someone to come and tell me that this is just a joke. Not again, not two weeks after Wouter, not Xavier.
Unfortunately, no one will come - Movistar's manager has confirmed the news and the riders are already paying their tribute to their colleague.
I feel useless, powerless and I can't find the right words for this tragedy. Moreover, I cannot understand why those things can happen. And I cannot understand how our destiny can be so cruel.
Now I'd really like to send all my strength and support to Xavier's family, to his teammates, to his friends and to his supporters. Once again, the cycling family has to face another terrible loss and grief again all together.

Descansa en paz, Xavier. We will all miss you terribly. May you stay close to all the ones that loved you and support them in this awful moment. Once again, DEP.

Dominio español in the Dolomites:

Another strange stage in the Giro, dear readers. And another occasion to get angry for me.

I've always considered the Giro as the most exciting GT of the year, but this year I'm finding it boring and annoying (ok, this is due to the fact that I'm finding Contador hateful). Moreover, I'm regretting the absence of a guy like Riccò (yes, I'm becoming crazy), who would have surely said something to Alberto and to the other Spaniards after today's stage.
First of all, the riders this afternoon had the chance of riding through some of the most breathtaking Italian sceneries. I was in Canazei three years ago and on one day my dad took the car and brought the whole family on a trip on the roads of the Giro. First we drove up Pordoi, then we drove up Giau ('Imagine how it must feel to be on the top of this climb, look down and see your main rivals who have already ended the descent', dad said), then we faced the Rolle, went to Cortina, took a break, and then we went back in our car and drove up Passo Fedaia which, according to my father (who worked hard to make the car go up that climb) was the hardest mountain of the whole area. We didn't drive through the amazing rock walls that the riders could see today, but we did arrive near to the lake at the top of the climb. On another occasion instead we drove up to Gardeccia and went walking, almost reaching the top of the Torri del Vajolet (the mountains that RAI showed after the riders crossed the finish-line).
Said that, the riders today had to face the climbs of Piancavallo, Forcella Cibiana, Passo Giau (Cima Coppi of the race), Passo Fedaia and Gardeccia.
Amongst the riders who atttacked today there were Emanuele Sella (who, on those very same mountains, rode very strong in 2008), Kevin Seeldraeyers (the last rider to cross the finish-line yesterday), Yaroslav Popovych, Johnny Hoogerland, Jan Bakelandts (why am I not surprised that these 3 guys went on a breakaway?), Aliaksander Kuchinsky and Javier Aramendia. Soon they were joined also by Stefano Garzelli (the oldest rider of the field after Noé's retire), Danilo Di Luca, Luis Pasamontes, Stefano Pirazzi, Carlos Sastre (he's alive!!), Pieter Weening (a hero), Philip Deignan, Alberto Losada, Evgeni Petrov, Mikael Nieve and Johann Tschopp.
Hoogerland said 'adieu!' to them with about 70 kms to go, but the first man to finish the Passo Giau was Stefano Garzelli, who was followed by Nieve (who, at the time, had a delay of 45").
In the meanwhile, Contador attacked with a few hundred of meters before the beginning of the Giau descent, since he was simply terrified by the idea of facing an attack by Nibali. In fact, Contador had no teammates left and seemed worried by this thing.
On the descent, Nibali gave us an excellent show and gained 40" on the Maglia Rosa. Ah, if yesterday there had been the Crostis descent!!!
But then, while Nibali was trying to maintain his advantage, a very annoying (at least for me, since I was supporting Vincenzo) thing happened. In fact, Pablo Lastras (Movistar) and Igor Anton (Euskaltel, third in the GC) started to pull hard in order to reduce Contador's gap from Nibali. I was simply shocked when I saw Pablo working in that way for Alberto, as if he was one of his helpers. And to say that, in 2008, Riccò had a terrible argument with Sella because he had given a single turn at the front to Contador on the Monte Pora climb (Riccò even asked Emanuele: 'How much did he pay you?')... I know that allies have always been an important part in cycling, but why was Movistar helping Saxo Bank in that way? Riis' team hasn't helped them yet in this Giro!
Told about this fact, Nibali stopped pushing hard on his pedals. But still, he was going to pay his effort on Fedaia. There in fact he got dropped, just like Lastras and Anton. What happened then? Simple: Rujano took the lead and started to pull in order to help Contador. This was actually more acceptable (although still pretty annoying), since a few days ago Contador gave a stage victory to Rujano. A few meters later, Contador told Arroyo (who had just escaped from the Maglia Rosa group) to follow him. Really, someone should explain the Spaniards that they're not taking part in the Worlds and that they're not riding for the Spanish national team.
On the descent from Fedaia, Nibali made another masterpiece and came back on Contador's group (apropos, why did Saxo Bank team car stop in that curve? It was dangerous!). But then the last climb started and Contador attacked, dropping the other riders and starting his solo towards the finish-line.
Ahead of the Maglia Rosa, however, there were still two riders, Garzelli and Nieve. Right after the beginning of Gardeccia, Nieve rode past Garzelli, who was facing a bonk. Eventually, the Euskaltel rider crossed the finish-line 1'41" earlier than Garzelli.
In the meanwhile, Scarponi started to gain time on Contador, whereas Nibali was facing another terrible time. In the end, Contador gained 6" on Scarponi, about 37" on a great Gadret, 1' 30" on Nibali, 2'20" on Kreuziger, 2'42" on Menchov.
Igor Anton sacrificed his 3rd place in the GC in order to help Contador and arrived 7minutes after Nieve. Kruijswijk instead was very good and showed he's a threat to Kreuziger's white jersey.
The last rider, Matthew Wilson, arrived 44'55" minutes after the winner. Chapeau to him.
After the stage, Italian tv had the chance to interview Riis, who transformed 'Il Processo' in a hipocrisy show. In fact, Bjarne said: 'On the other day I had a meeting with the other ds and they told me they didn't want to face Crostis not because of safety reasons, but because they thought the sport aspect of the race wasn't guaranteed on that climb. I said that a car with the bikes of the best riders on could have followed them, but the other ds said that wasn't enough. Then, I just had to respect UCI's decision. I was disappointed by the public booing at Contador, it was the UCI that decided to cut the Crostis from the race, not me or him'.
Unfortunately, all the facts of the last days (the Crostis thing, Contador's words about mechanical problems, the Spaniards' behaviours) are making me sick and they make me think that, since the end of this Giro, Contador and Riis won't be welcomed anymore by the majority of Italian supporters. I like cycling, but this Giro looks more like a football tournament than like a cycling race. And, personally, I'm saddened me and upsetted by this fact.

Antòn wins the most exciting Giro stage so far:

Motorbikes' engines exploding, mechanics shouting at each other, supporters booing at the Maglia Rosa, Riis driving past the jury car, the journalists angry at UCI. And then the race itself: Antòn getting the victory, Contador looking almost human, Kreuziger disappearing in the haze (and frost) of Zoncolan, Nibali, Menchov and Scarponi showing that they're still alive. Desperate, but not hopeless. This, and much more, was today's drama on the road to Zoncolan.

Today's stage was the most exciting stage of this year Giro d'Italia so far, no doubts about that. In it there was everything a supporter could desire: anger, drama, excitement, fear, anger, relief - and, most important, every rider (even Contador) this afternoon looked human.
However, let's start from the beginning of this stage. Or, better, let's start from what happened about 24 hours ago.
As you all know, the Crostis was taken out of the parcours of today's stage after that many ds complained about it with the UCI. Last week these brave men didn't tell the Giro organisers that they didn't want to face the Crostis, although they knew that just 5 teams were in favour of riding up that climb (and down that descent). In fact, they preferred to say that everything was ok in the official team meeting with Mauro Vegni. But then, without telling the other ds (Lampre and Geox's ds didn't know anything about it) and without telling the race organisers, these amazing people phoned UCI. Apparently, Patrick Lefevre phoned the Belgian UCI jury president at the Giro although he wasn't in Italy with his riders.
Since those guys couldn't say that Crostis had a dangerous road (Zomegnan made great efforts to make it become safer; actually, his efforts were so big that, when Lampre's ds went there by car on the rest day to check the descent, he said that it was 'one of the safest roads I've seen in the last years'), they decided to play the only card remaining: the sportive aspect of the race. In fact, they claimed that the stage wouldn't have been acceptable from the agonistic point of view because on the Crostis the team cars wouldn't have been able to follow the riders. Unfortunately for cycling, their claim was successful.
Actually, the ds had another meeting with Vegni (one of the Giro organisers) two days ago and during it they talked about the Crostis. Apparently, Riis got so angry at Vegni that, at a certain point, he even stood up and went in front of him, shouting. Then he met other ds in a bar and we all know what happened next. Actually it seems that, if the Giro organisers wouldn't have accepted the ds' will, some teams would have gone on a strike at the bottom of Crostis. If I had been Zomegnan, I would have told them that they were free to do what they wanted: those who wanted to go on, would have ridden up and down the Crostis. The other ones would have simply got off their bikes and would have been forced to leave the race. Simple as that.

The supporters were obviously very angry at what happened, especially because this decision was a very political one. In fact, it seems that UCI wanted to favour the 'bad' ds because, apparently, they are the same people who in the future would like to go against the UCI system. Because of this political reason, all the people who were waiting to get on Crostis this morning, those who worked (free) in order to make the descent become safe, those who worked (free) in order to asphalt the roads, those who had prepared all the cartels and pink balloons/bikes on the climb, well, all those people couldn't watch the race passing in front of them.
People obviously got really mad when they heard about UCI's decision. And since Riis was heavily involved in it, many supporters booed at Contador during today's stage. Nibali tried to defend his colleague by saying that: 'The poor thing hasn't got anything to do with UCI's decision', but there was no way to convince the tifosi.
In particular, Contador was booed when he collected his pink jersey at the end of the stage. In this way he became the only rider in history who, in less than 12 months time, managed to be booed both by the Giro tifosi and by the Tour supporters while receiving the leader jersey on the podium. Impressive record, really.
Personally, I would have booed at Contador just this morning, when he told Gazzetta: 'I'm very happy that the Crostis has been cut from today's stage. No one wants to lose the Giro because of a mechanical'. Really, this sentence made me wonder (for the third time in less than one year) whether Contador thinks we're all stupid. How can you say a thing like that when you won last year Tour (also) because your main rival's chain popped and you pretended you hadn't realised it? Did Andy Schleck really want to waste the Tour because of a mechanical? What's the difference between him and the other riders? Or does this rule apply just to the Giro?
Talking about the stage and angry supporters, yesterday evening the Giro organisers found another climb that the riders could have faced instead of the Zoncolan. Too bad that the road towards it was blocked by the supporters as a sign of protest so that, with 46 kms to go, the stage was shortened of other 20 kms.
Gadret at that point almost took a wrong road, causing Savoldelli (RAI's chronist) to say with a desperate voice: 'I really cannot understand what's going on, some riders have taken a road, the whole peloton has taken another one and I can't understand anything!' Poor, poor thing.

At that point of the race, Tankink, Brambilla and Rabottini were in a breakaway and they started the Zoncolan with 6 minutes of advantage on the following riders. They were welcomed in Ovaro by the following sentence, coming from the Divine Comedy (Canto II, if I'm not making a big mistake): 'Lasciate ogni speranza o voi che entrate' ('Abandon every hope you who arrive'). Encouraging, isn't it?
In the meanwhile, the peloton split in two parts and the only car who managed to follow the first group of riders was SB's one, who broke a rule by riding past the jury vehicle. According to UCI rules, the stage sould be neutralised because of that. What if someone would have had a mechanical there? As wise Conti says, 'no one wants to lose a Giro because of a mechanical', right?
At the bottom of Zoncolan then there were scenes of mass hysteria amongst the mechanics, who had to leave their team cars in order to get on some motorbikes (UCI, where are you? The team cars didn't follow the riders up the Zoncolan! This means that the stage isn't legal! Neutralise it, now!!). Too bad that the vehicles often risked to crash against one another and that the mechanics soon started to argue. And too bad that also Riis got on a motorbike, although he isn't a mechanic. How did that happen?
In the meanwhile, Rai's motorbike blew up, causing much entertainment to Davide Cassani ('It's Andrea De Luca's motorbike!!', he said, probably while producing a great grin).

With about 7 kms to go, Joaquim Rodriguez attacked. His attack was followed by Anton's one. Then Contador attacked too and in that moment I understood he wasn't feeling that well - or, perhaps, he wasn't going full gas. In fact he didn't drop everyone else, but Nibali slowly managed to get back on his wheel with about 4 kms to go. Also Scarponi, in spite of a chain pop (UCI, stop the other riders, now!), got back on Conti, whereas Menchov was keeping them under control.
With 2 kms to go, Contador attacked again. Scarponi got dropped, whereas Nibali could hold on. In the meanwhile, Igor Anton was riding towards victory and Kreuziger was drowning in the deepest abysses of the peloton. Then Contador attacked again, but Nibali went back to him again. At that point, he dropped him again.
In the meanwhile, Anton took his victory. Yesterday Euskaltel had worked hard for Contador and, according to some, in this way Alberto paid them back the favour. Antòn was really happy for his victory and my mum was just as happyas him. Yesterday in fact she had burst in my room screaming: 'Who's Igor? Where does he come from? HE'S A CUTIEEEEE!' (yes, Fangirlism is a genetic disease).

After the stage, as already said, Contador was booed, whereas Nibali attacked the Spaniard using words as weapons. 'He was disrespectful. I asked him to give me a turn at the front while we were riding, but he said no. Then he dropped me in the last km'. Given that on a steep climb like Zoncolan it doesn't matter who's leading on a climb and who isn't, I think that Nibali especially got angry by the fact that Contador eventually dropped him, thus gaining other 7" on him. It takes good legs to be an excellent rider, but it takes also something else to be a true champion...

Scrolling down the stage classification, we can see Menchov getting an amazing 5th (he said he had suffered from allergy on Etna, poor thing!), Nieve and Dupont getting 6th and 7th, Sivtsov (who'd like to win a stage for his wife) got 9th, Kruijswijk 12th, Niemiec 13th (love this man!). Stetina was a very good 15th, whereas Wyss was a great 22nd. Visconti was 29th (better than Pinotti and Lovkvist, wow!), whereas Kreuziger was 16th. Le Mevel (who in the morning had sung 'Le Marseillaise' for Italian tv) was 19th.
So, this was the Zoncolan stage. A Spaniard triumphed, another Spaniard was booed, the supporters were angry and I was happy for the final outcome for the stage. The Giro's GC riders may look desperate after every attack by Contador, but they won't be hopeless until they reach Milan.

Crostis climb cut out of the Giro, as Rujano gets the Grossglockner stage

'I'm the third best climber of the world'. This sentence, said by a little man from Venezuela who had been lost in the thickest haze of the cycling world for almost 5 years, at the beginning of 2010 caused many big laughs amongst sport experts, supporters (me included) and other people. But still, José Rujano has always believed in himself and in that sentence.
'You think you're stronger than Joaquim Rodriguez? Stronger than Carlos Sastre? Stronger than Igor Anton? Stronger than Frank Schleck, Ivan Basso and Danilo Di Luca? Who do you think you are?!?', many people asked José. And today, the 29 year-old (third in Giro 2005) finally showed who he think he is.

The Grossglockner (sorry, but my computer doesn't know what a 'scharfes s' is) is the highest mountain of Austria. From its top you can see very far and, perhaps, you can even see Italy. Italy with its climbs and with its cities. And I'm sure that Alberto Contador clearly saw an image of himself wearing a pink jersey in Milan right after crossing the finish-line.
The Giro had arrived on the Grossglockner already in 1971. On that day the glory went to Pierfranco Vianelli, whereas the final Maglia Rosa wearer in that Giro was the Swedish rider Gosta Petterson. That year the pink jersey celebrated its 40 birthday, this year it celebrates its 70th.
The pink jersey (whose colour derives from the colour of the paper on which the Gazzetta dello Sport has been printed every day for many decades) has always been the 'fémme fatale' of cycling. As if it was a woman, the Italians call her 'she'; As if she was a true 'fatal woman', this jersey has been desired by many men, even after that she abandoned them. She has betrayed many lovers, she has created them illusions, she has made them cried. But at the same time, she has made some of them laugh of joy, she has made them famous, she has made them rich and envied. Yesterday, she even made some men rent a private airplane in order to be able to get a short close meeting with her.

As Contador pointed out yesterday, rest is very important in this Giro. And in order not to lose useful rest time in the hotel, yesterday Scarponi, Niemiec and Marzoli rented a private jet that brought them to Spilimbergo. On the other hand, Nibali opted for a less expensive helicopter, whereas Contador didn't bother about arriving to Spilimbergo in a team car.
Today's stage was the third one of an amazing 'triplete'. Tomorrow in fact the riders will face Crostis and Zoncolan one after the other, whereas on Sunday they'll face 'the toughest stage ever' towards Gardeccia. Apropos: in two days time, be ready to spotting a half-naked supporter wearing a pair of cow horns. He's always on Passo Giau so, when you see him, don't say I hadn't advised.
Because of the demanding next stages of the Giro, many sprinters decided to abandon the Corsa Rosa this morning. More precisely, these men were Renshaw, Petacchi, Belletti, Cavendish, Hondo and Ventoso. During the stage instead there were the retires of Kohler, Modolo, Ciolek and Appollonio (who had promised he would have tried to reach Milan). Chicchi, on the other hand, remained in the race, although he admitted that he received a little help from his team car on Etna.
In spite of the hard climb waiting for them at the end of the race, many riders decided to go on a breakaway this afternoon. They were Cayetano Sarmiento (last rider to get caught on the final climb of the day) Pieter Weening (penultimate rider to get caught), Pablo Lastras (who tried breaking free from the little group of riders every time they approached a descent), Branislau Samoilau, Rafael Valls, Alberto Losada, Angel Vicioso, Craig Lewis, Lars Petter Nordhaug (he enjoys breakaways!), Andrea Noé (42 year-old, chapeau!), Johnny Hoogerland (chorus of *yays!* coming from the Dutch supporters), Rinaldo Nocentini, Kristof Vandewalle (who keeps on racing in spite of his facial injuries, chapeau also to him!), Cameron Meyer and Alessandro Spezialetti. Astana's Robert Kiserlovski (one of my favourite GC riders) remained with those guys until they reached the '40 kms to go' mark. At that point he said 'fare thee well' to his companions (apropos, what's the Croatian for 'Adieu'?) and went on a lonely escape. His attack was neutralised with about 12 kms to go.
In the meanwhile, the peloton was lead by Euskaltel guys. Contador had said he was going to create himself some friends in the peloton in order to win this Giro - and Euskaltel really seems a good friend. In fact, the Basque riders pulled almost for the whole stage, in order to help Igor Anton. Eventually, their work benefited Alberto more than everyone else.
The riders began the climb towards Grossglockner with 15 kms to go. I went to Grossglockner in 2002 and I have great memories of that place (and of that holiday in general). There in fact I saw a marmot, I walked on the glacier (it was July and I was completely shocked by that fact), I discovered how 'burnt car brakes' smell like, watched my dad paying 29 euros (29 euros!! 58 mila lire!!!) just because he wanted to drive his car up to a mountain (at the time I was 10 and I found this pretty strange) and then, in the end, I also went to the little zoo at the bottom of the climb, where I could see some wolves.
Anyway. I'm digressing. With 8 kms to go, Rujano (1.62 meters of height, 48 kgs of weight) attacked. He was followed by Scarponi and by Contador, so he was forced to attack again. Then it was Contador's time to attack. Once again, the only one who could follow the Spaniard was the short man from Venezuela, who this time even gave him some turns at the front.
In the meanwhile, the other GC riders were going up the climb with an apparently slow pace. They didn't organise a serious chase and, when Masciarelli came back on their group, Kreuziger made him pull once again. When Francesco got dropped, no one chased anymore.
With about 3 kms to go, AG2R's Dupont and Gadret both attacked, followed by Anton. In spite of this, they couldn't bridge up to the dynamic duo formed by Rujano and Contador, sorry, 'Terminador', who ended the race with 1'36" of advantage on Kreuziger, Scarponi, Menchov, Nibali, Kiryenka and Arroyo. 13th was a great Kruijswijk, whereas 17th was Sivtsov and 18th Niemiec (love that man!!).
Contador let the victory to José (thus making himself new friends inside the peloton), who couldn't believe his eyes when he won.

CROSTIS UPDATE (added after reading the latest news regarding Crostis):
After the stage, Nibali sounded really depressed. 'Contador is stronger than us, we can't do nothing about it'. Also the journalists said that: 'the Giro is over because Contador is way too strong'. On the other hand, Scarponi admitted 'having tried everything I could'. Talking about Michele, I think he's paying the fact that he was in a super form already in March (just think about his amazing Sanremo!).
Actually, until a few moments ago I thought that Contador still could be defeated in this Giro. Experts in fact said that Nibali could have gained about 2' advantage on tomorrow's descent of Crostis, whereas Contador really feared that downhill road. Unfortunately, right now I've discovered that the riders won't face the Crostis tomorrow. Apparently, the main problem is that the team cars wouldn't have been able to follow the riders down that descent. Some ds were against this fact, whereas almost all the ds whose riders are racing against Contador (Savio, Damiani, Amadio) were in favour of it. Unfortunately for them (and for the supporters who are already in the Crostis area, perhaps without Internet connection), the UCI has decided to cancel the downhill. My 50 cent about this decision? Well, it's very simple: the riders, UCI and the ds knew about the Crostis descent since November. Why do the UCI commisaries decide to take it away from the Giro just now, less than 15 hours before the beginning of tomorrow's stage? I agree with the decision itself, but the way it has been taken really freaks me out.
Just think about the supporters who are already on the Crostis with their campers/roulottes. They'll wake up tomorrow morning at 9 am to find out that the race won't ride in front of them. How nice! And think also about those who have already gone to bed and will wake up tomorrow at 5 to get on Crostis before the police closes the roads for the cars. Are UCI guys going to tell these people directly about their decisions? Or will the supporters find out about it tomorrow morning, when it will already be too late to go up Zoncolan?
Moreover, I understand that safety is a priority for cyclists and I do believe that Zomegnan dared a bit too much with this this year parcours (I said that already a long time ago). However, I think it's interesting to notice that the UCI commissaries decided to cut Crostis from the parcours not because of safety reasons, but because the team cars couldn't have directed the riders properly during the descent and on the climb. Now, aren't the UCI guys the same people who want to ban radios?!? Shouldn't they pay more attention to leaked suspicious list and to the support of the credibility of cycling rather than doing these last minute things?
Really, in this moment I'm very upset and I really do understand the anger of the Giro organisers. Mauro Vegni in fact said: "The route of tomorrow's stage was discussed and okayed by the riders in Catania before the transfer on Sunday (...). We didn't hear any objections from the riders or teams today but we understand that they complained to the UCI judges". Wonderful behaviour, congratulations guys! Now, are those ds/riders going to take their own responsibility for this thing or will their names remain unknown forever and ever?
I didn't like the Crostis descent, but the way they cut it out of the Giro is ridiculous. Whereas I agree with the decision itself, I really do believe it could have been taken in another, better way.
And then, think about the morale of a guy like Nibali: he was sure he would have been able to attack on Crostis descent, now he's found out he won't even face it. Shocking!!!
Really, now it looks like the furunculus on Contador's gluteus is the only thing in which his adversaries must trust in order to defeat him in this Giro (ok, I'm exaggerating; but still, these last minute decisions really do freak me out).

Luckily, the Giro is still long and Contador is human. Have a good night and let's get ready for the Zoncolan tomorrow!

TOC (SHORT AND IMPARTIAL) UPDATE:
1. Figbash points out the crash that Denifl had the other day (or night?): http://velonews.competitor.com/2011/05/gallery/casey-b-gibson-photos-from-stage-5-of-the-2011-amgen-tour-of-california_174618/attachment/amgen-tour-of-california-stage-5-15 . Ouch!!
2. Another bad news for Leopard Trek: Jens Voigt broke his scaphoid bone and will have to undergo an operation. I wish him a fast recovery!!

(Pic by Bettini: Rujano couldn't believe he was actually winning the stage, he kept on looking at what Contador was doing behind him!!!)

Random post about random things:

Lots of news to comment, dear readers, and just a few free moments to talk about them. How annoying.
So, let's start from the saddest part ever: as you could understand from my last post, yesterday the Belgian city of Gand hosted the funeral of WW Special. I decided not to watch the vids from the funeral in these days because I know they would really bring me down - and right now I can't actually allow myself to spend a day crying.
However, I did risk to break into tears while reading today's Gazzetta and other reports from the funeral. Fabian Wegmann and the boys who carried the coffins looked so sad and An Sophie and her sister were really destroyed. Even Wouter's father, a firefighter who had always looked very controlled here in Italy, was a broken man. May his son rest in peace forever and ever.

As our dear blogmate Figbash has recently pointed out in one of her last comments, on http://www.roadid.com/Wouter/ there is a simple way to help the family of Wouter: you just need to buy a bracelet which costs 15 $ - all the money will go to An Sophie and to her daughter. So, what are we waiting for? Let's all get one!!

CALIFORNIA, HERE WE COME...
Talking about happier things, Andy Schleck was second in yesterday's ToC stage. He was outsprinted just by Horner and he was really satisfied with his result. "This is my first race back and I really didn't know where I would sit," Andy told Cyclingnews. "I knew that I was not lazy and that I was working hard. On the bottom when Chris Horner and Levi Leipheimer went, I was a little bit in the red zone. I wouldn't say that I took it easy, but I went a little slower and went in the group behind. Linus Gerdemann (the team leader) was just a little bit behind the group and I thought that he could catch up with us but, in the end, he didn't," he added. "The last kilometre I tried everything I had. I was surprised by second place. I feel confident for Mt Baldy." We're looking forward to it too! However, has Our Glorious Leader done something to his hair? They looked a bit longer in some recent photos...
Still talking about ToC, Jens Voigt had a bad crash the other day. "I survived today so that is a good sign", Voigt said yesterday. "The good thing is that I didn't lose much skin but my hand hurts and I can't really move it, also I can't really use it. I will go and have an x-ray tonight to see if anything is broken, at least I would know the recovery and what to do next. My shoulder is functioning and I have a contusion and hopefully my hand is not broken". Let's hope everything's alright with good old Jens!
(Little suggestion: to read more about ToC, visit http://eisenandy.blogspot.com/ ).

GIRO TIME!
Now, let's finally talk about the Giro. Yesterday's stage was very thrilling, while today's and Tuesday's ones weren't that great. Or, actually, they weren't that great if you, like me, were able to see just their last 3 kms (stupid school...).
The Teramo stage (that arrived after a rest day and after a long transfer by plane, after which an exhausted Pinotti could finally get in his hotel room at 1 am) was won by Cavendish after that Petacchi had actually worked as his lead-out man. Poor Alessandro in fact paid the bad day at the office of his friend Hondo, who wasn't that good the other day. Talking about helpers who haven't been that good lately, poor Szmyd has a bronchitis (you were wondering why he had disappeared, weren't you?), whereas Agnoli is on antibiotics. Oh, and talking about Liquigas and bad luck: Basso has had a very bad crash while training on Etna, he got 15 stitches in his face but now he's fine.
Back to Mark's victory, it wasn't very appreciated by Ventoso, who got second. 'The team cars helped him to remain in the time limit on Etna!', Francisco claimed right after the finish-line, together with other riders. Chicchi on the other hand said that 'Cavendish, the other gruppetto riders and I did everything on our own, we recuperated even 2 minutes from the leading group in the last kms of race!" (wait, are you telling me that Cav rode stronger than Contador and Nibali on Etna?!?). Mark instead said that 'Ventoso'd better shut up, I could tell many things about him too". A recent news, however, says that a supporter vid shows Chicchi and another gruppetto riders getting helped by their team cars on Etna. Will this be true?
Talking about another polemic, Mario Cipollini has said that, in his opinion, Cav doesn't lead 'the athlete life'. In fact, according to 'The Lion King' (which is Mario, and not Simba), Cannonball ate too many ice creams before the beginning of the Giro and so he is a bit fat.
Fat or not, Cavendish won even today's stage in Ravenna :P Today's stage actually had a very tricky finale and in fact at the last curve there was a little crash involving Sacha Modolo. However, it looks like no one got seriously hurt.
Second behind Cav was a great Appollonio, third was Petacchi.
Talking about riders who've recently got injured, poor Kristof Vandewalle is racing with very bad facial wounds after a crash on Wednesday. That stage was very exciting, although Scarponi didn't show us the attack he had promised.
At the beginning of the day Nibali had tried enter a breakaway in order to force Saxo Bank to work a bit and that was a very good move. Then other guys broke clear from the peloton and Vincenzo went back in the group.
The breakawayers du jour were all really good: Christophe Le Mevel, Daniel Moreno, Marco Manzano, Valerio Agnoli, Fabio Taborre,Carlos Alberto Betancourt, Simone Stortoni, Steven Kruijswijk, Ignatas Konovalovas,Tiago Machado and Lars Petter Nordhaug. Le Mevel was the virtual Maglia Rosa of the race for a lot of time (apropos: when was the last time that a French wore the pink jersey?), but then he had to give up to his dreams of glory.
Betancourt attacked bravely, but blew up on one of the last climbs, just like Stortoni. Moreno and Konovalovas (love this guy!!) instead were caught with less than 1 km to go (damn!!), on the Castelfidardo final climb. The victory there went to John Gadret, a peculiar Frenchman who prefers the Giro to the Tour and who worked in a grapewine until he was 23. All the GC riders ended the race together.
Talking about GC riders, Contador has recently said that: 'This Giro could be won in the hotel' (Evilness reminds me that Pinotti and I had already understood that thing in December 2010). Therefore the other day he decided to skip the pos-stage press conference with the Maglia Rosa. How nice.
Talking about Contador, I haven't replied to the comments that were left after my last post: don't worry, I'll do it as soon as I have enough time. Moreover, now Optimism is definitely leading the match against Pessimism, so I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's stage. Wir gehen nach Oesterreich, wie schoen!!!

Ciao Wouter

"Wouter has never gone away, he's remained with us on every single stage and he's become the most loved rider of the Giro. Everyone of us could see his name written on the roads, his race number repeated without a pause. On a sheet of paper, on a message written by a group of children, on the roof of a country house, always in memory of Wouter. His presence inside the peloton has become stronger and stronger. His memory strikes us and saddens us in different ways, but there's one thing that unites us all: his absence. The peloton isn't the same anymore, now that it's lost a man. But his memory has got us as close as never before, as no one else could have done. We'll meet us again in the next race. Rest in peace, Wouter'

David Millar remembering Special WW today at the Giro

Giro d'Italia: always with us.

Some reflections of mine about Contador's stunning victory on Etna (plus a few random remarks):

Seven days after the disappearance of Wouter Weylandt, the Giro riders are ready to start the second week of race.

Although I'm not a rider, I really needed a rest day from the Giro - and not only because this afternoon I had to study for some bloody tests. I needed a rest day because I'm still shocked by what Contador did yesterday on Etna.
In the comment area of my last post I wrote that the way Contador rode yesterday was 'too good to be true'. 24 hours after writing that, my opinion hasn't changed.
'Innocent until proven guilty: four words to live by', this is the motto of the main character of a BBC series about barristers. Actually, that motto doesn't apply just to barristers - unfortunately, it worths also for cycling supporters.
As I wrote in one of my last comments, I think that people who believe that no one in cycling is clean should stop following this sport. It'd cause them just pain and sickness and they could avoid wasting their time in such an improductive way. Being naive is an important condition for being a cycling supporter, especially after all the scandals of the last years. But still, even naiveness has a limit.
Watching Contador dropping everyone else on a climb like Etna was too much for me to take. I know that the Spaniard is the best climber of the world, but it should be impossible to drop other riders in a way like that. Especially if you consider that amongst the cyclists he dropped there were some very strong grimpeurs like Kreuziger, Nibali and Scarponi.
'Innocent until proven guilty: four words to live by'. Better write it on a sheet of paper and hang it on the wall in front of my bed. Perhaps it will make those doping ghosts go away from my head.
I'm really trying to believe that Contador is clean, but I'm finding it very hard. And I find it even harder when I think that, actually, 'the innocent until proven guilty' thing doesn't apply to the Spaniard. In fact, last year (no matter what the Spanish justice thinks) there was some clenbuterol in his blood. So, he was already proven guilty once.
To say it all, right now I'm torn between two parts of my ego: the pessimistic one and the optimistic one. Pessimism makes me think that it's useless to watch the rest of the Giro, because Contador will surely win it and because he's a doper. On the other hand, optimism tells me:
1. that is not the first time that Contador drops everyone else on the first climb of a Grand Tour.
2. that Contador's power datas weren't that impressive.
3. that Contador wouldn't risk another positivity just because he wanted to win on Etna.

I'm really confused right now, since I would love to be able to believe that Contador's victory was a clean one but, at the same time, I'm finding it very tough.
'Innocent until proven guilty'. Again, those words ring inside my head. Shall I apply them to Contador's case? Or not?
Well, perhaps it would be better if I believed that Contador is clean. In that way, I would be able to read the newspaper without laughing sarcastically every time I read headlines like: 'Contador is as strong as Pantani', 'A spectacular Contador wins on Etna' or 'Contador is as strong as Coppi'. And perhaps I would even be able to enjoy the next Giro stages without thinking about doping.
However, I really do hope that Contador will give his adversaries the chance to do something against him. Many people said that Alberto's action on Etna was 'superb, spectacular, a joy for every cycling lover', but personally I found it boring and I didn't really like it. In fact, I want to see riders battling on a climb, not a single athlete attacking and dropping everyone else in 2 seconds time.
But hey, perhaps there's something wrong with me. And to say that I pretty like Contador as a person. I mean, I hated him after Chaingate, but last week I watched an interview with him and he came across as a very nice and modest boy.

Anyway, considering that right now I seem unable to put an end to the debate going on my mind between Pessimism and Optimism, perhaps it's time to think about the next stages of the Giro.
In the last hours I've heard many people saying that Contador has already won the Giro and that his adversaries should race for the second place. Most of the GC contenders have said that: 'Contador is strong, but the Giro is long', and this may sound like the usual cliché that people say when things go bad. However, I don't think we should despair in front of Alberto's strength. The Giro is a complicated race and it takes very few to lose it: a night without sleep, a virus, a sudden cold, an allergy problem, a crash, a chain popping at the wrong moment... Therefore I think we should all watch the next Giro stages and see what happens. Doping or not, Contador is strong, but the Giro is a three weeks long race. Moreover, now that he has the pink jersey, Saxo Bank will have to control the race in the next days. And, as we know, controlling a race takes a lot of effort.

Talking about other things connected to yesterday's Giro stage, I'd like to point out that Pieter Weening lost the jersey. However, I'm glad that I've discovered this rider: he seems a very nice guy and some of his facial expressions are just great.
Another thing to notice about yesterday is that Visconti went on a breakaway. Although he isn't in his best condition, in fact, the Italian champion absolutely wanted to honour the only Sicilian stage of the Corsa Rosa. He and Nibali were welcomed by a great support in their home region and Nibali even sang a Sicilian song at the start of the stage (although he did look embarassed, he made the tifosi happy). After the stage instead he was welcomed by a plate full of cannoli siciliani (which he couldn't eat). Yum!!
Other thing to notice, Niemiec's great work. The boy is strong, I had told you that!!
Amongst the riders that disappointed me a bit yesterday there were Pinotti, Menchov, Rodriguez and Lovkvist. On the other hand, I was happy to see Rujano, Siutsou and Bakelandts doing well.
A thing that I didn't understand was Garzelli's sprint in order to take the third place on the stage ahead of Nibali. Those 8 bonus seconds are surely going to change his GC eventual classification... :P
Last but not least, two riders finished out of time limit yesterday. They are Robbie McEwen (Richie Porte said he's worried because now the gruppetto has lost its leader) and Graeme Brown. Cavendish instead entered the time limit for just 30" - and, according to Gazzetta, he also received some help from the supporters.

So, these are my few, confused opinions about yesterday stage. In case you're wondering how the debate between Optimism and Pessimism ended up, well, let's say that the temporary score is 1-1 (yesterday evening instead Pessimism was leading with the score of 1-0). Hopefully tomorrow my opinions will be a bit clearer.
That's all from me for the moment - sorry for the confusing post, but my cyclistic mind right now is a true mess! :S

Random randomness, Fiuggi Terme and Tropea's stages of the Giro, Agnoli proposes to his girlfriend and Leopard Trek remembers WW Special:

Given the horrible weather, I'm not going out this evening, so I have some time to rewrite that post of mine that Blogger deleted two days ago and to talk a bit also about today's stage. However, feel free to leave comments also in the comment areas of my previous entries: I'll take a look at my old posts regularly during this month!

SAPRI-TROPEA:
NB: Today's stage of the Giro was dedicated to the memory of 8 amateur cyclist who were killed by a car last December. The car's driver was on drugs and he ran over this group of men as they rode outside Lamezia Terme. 7 riders immediately died, whereas the 8th one perished in hospital a few weeks after the accident.

Sapri - Tropea offered us another exciting final sprint and some jawdropping sea landscapes.
The two breakawayers du jour were Leonardo Giordani (U23 world champion in 1999) and Mirko Selvaggi, who were caught by the peloton with 9.5 kms to go. Those two athletes train together whenever they can and that's why, at the end of their adventure, they embraced each other in a very friendly way.
Today's stage had a very particular finale. In fact, the last kms of race were full of curves and presented a very peculiar climb. Said climb in fact was short and easy, but it presented two hairpin turns which forced many riders to slow down and brake, causing them to lose some seconds from the riders who were at the front of the peloton. Saxo Bank guys knew this and that's why they worked hard at the front of the group in the last kms of race.
With about 2 kms to go, when the riders still hadn't got over the last climb, Farnese's Oscar Gatto launched an attack. Right after Gatto attacked, another rider escaped from the peloton and started to chase him. Said rider was Alberto Contador and I had to check his face twice before I could finally believe what I was seeing.
No one else managed to follow the Spaniard, who was reducing his gap from Gatto in a very fast way.
Eventually, luckily for him, Gatto managed to get the stage victory, while Contador (second in the stage) received a time bonus of 12". Add these 12" to the 5" he gained on the rest of the peloton and you'll discover that, on a simple stage like this one, Contador managed to steal 17" from his main contenders. A bad morale blow for the other Gc contenders, isn't it?
Third in the stage was Petacchi, whereas Kristoff was a surprising 4th.
As a consequence of his great team work, Richie Porte lost 1'43" from Gatto in today's stage, whereas Fabio Duarte got retired during the stage (does anyone know why?).

I must say that I was very happy for Oscar Gatto's victory. In fact you must know that he was considered a great cycling promise as he turned pro, but then he seemed to have lost his sprinting abilities. This year, finally, Oscar has finally returned back to his good old level and he's already got many good victories. As they say, today's victory in the Giro can be considered 'the icing on the cake' - now, what about adding a participation in the Copenhagen's Worlds to that delicious cake? ;)

This afternoon I was also very surprised by Contador's attack, which I didn't expect at all. But still, I think he wanted to send a psychological message to Scarponi (who attacked and almost dropped the Spaniard yesterday) and to Nibali.
Actually, my surprise for Contador's attack made me behave in a very bitter way. In fact, when he escaped from the peloton, my dad said: 'Contador?!? Why is he attacking? I mean, this climb doesn't suit him!!'. Insensitive to my father's excitement, I went: 'Well, it's actually very simple, dad: everyone else's chain must have popped, otherwise Contador would have never attacked. D'you remember le Tour?' Sorry, but at times I really can't handle my bitterness.
Talking about something different, after the stage poor Fabrizio Piacente (RAI's unexperienced journalist) didn't manage to interview Contador for the second time in a week. Dear Fabrizio, I just want you to know that you have all my support.
Moreover, after the stage I was reminded that Kreuziger isn't Italian (he speaks better than me, but this afternoon he failed to understand a question during an interview) and I discovered that Andrea De Luca and Paolo Savoldelli (RAI's journalists) are very good friends. In fact, they watched a post-stage vid together with other journalists and, in the end, they both started to laugh. Asked about this fact, De Luca said that he was laughing because of the vid, whereas Savoldelli said that 'watching De Luca makes me laugh'. What a couple of hilarious boys.

RANDOM LINK TO JOUR:
On http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/schleck-hopes-for-a-strong-performance-at-the-amgen-tour-of-california there's an interview with Andy schleck about Tour of California. I won't be covering this race in the next days (I prefer the Giro to ToC), but I'm sure you'll find regular updates on other blogs ('Eisen Andy', for example). However, if you have tales coming up from ToC, I remind you to send them to Bananas About Bikes: you'll see them published in no time :D

FIUGGI TERME STAGE:
Let's now go back in time talk a bit about Fiuggi Terme's stage, which was won by Ventoso. That was the first 'normal' stage that the riders faced since Special WW's disappearance and I welcomed it with pleasure. Actually, the atmosphere on that day was still pretty tense because of the polemics caused by Orvieto's gravel roads. In particular, after ending that stage Contador declared that the cyclists had to ride on 'roads for goats' (I wonder, why didn't he say the same about Tour's cobblestones?), whereas Ongarato asked: 'Who else has died?' as soon as he crossed the finish-line. That was a terrible comment, to which Zomegnan answered by saying that he doesn't even know who Ongarato is.
However, it was Contador himself who put a stop to all the polemics ('The past has gone, now let's focus on the present), whereas Nibali told the viewers that: 'I'm a Sicilian and I know Etna: everything will be perfect on Sunday because Etna usually stops erupting after 48 hours'.

Fiuggi's stage saw Jussi Veikkanen (first virtual Maglia Rosa of the Giro 2011), Kristof Vandewalle, Yaroslav Popovych, Sacha Modolo and Frederik Veuchelen attacking after a few kms after the beginning. The last breakawayer, Vandewalle, was caught with about 4 kms to go.
Amongst the other attackers du jour there were Kiserlovski (yay!) and Pirazzi, who attacked twice.
The riders had to face a little climb in the last kms of race and the finish itself was slightly uphill. The peloton faced the final climb with a very high pace and many sprinters got dropped.
With 1.5 km to go, Di Luca attacked. He was chased by Petacchi, who then had to start another sprint in order to win the stage. However, Alessandro was so tired that he suddenly stopped pedalling with 5 meters to go, leaving the stage victory to an astonished Ventoso. After crossing the finish-line, Petacchi sat down and said that he had 'just lost 10 years of life'.
In the meanwhile, Garzelli was arguing with Marzoli, who hadn't helped him in the sprint. 'I'm the captain, did you get it?', he told his teammate.

After the finish-line, there were some very nice scenes at 'Il Processo alla Tappa', a very popular Italian transmission related to the Giro. Valerio Agnoli was amongst the 'guests of the day', together with Ongarato and Contador.
While answering the question of a journalist, Agnoli said that right now he's in a very particular moment of his life. Then he looked his girlfriend Giovanna (who was on the stage of the transmission too), took a ring out of his pocket, and asked her to marry him. The girl was really embarassed, but she obviously said 'yes' and she sat down next to her future husband. The couple whispered for some minutes, before we eventually discovered a few things about the proposal. First, Valerio had kept that ring in his suitcase, waiting for the perfect moment, for 6 days. Secondly, Giovanna was very surprised because she 'didn't think that Valerio was in favour of marriages'. Thirdly, she herself had chosen the ring, thinking that it was a present for the mum of Nibali's girlfriend, who is a great friend of hers. And instead she was taken in, since the ring didn't go to mrs. Nibali, but to the future mrs. Agnoli. How nice! (this makes me ask to my readers: which 'cyclistic' proposals did you prefer so far? Frank Schleck, Van Summeren or Agnoli's one?)

As said, one of the other guests of 'Il Processo alla Tappa' on that day was Alberto Contador, who surprised me by saying that Saxo Bank produces everything the riders eat, 'bread included', in order to avoi problems with clenbuterol. Shocking, isn't it?

REMEMBERING WW SPECIAL...
As you all already know, Wouter Weylandt's funeral (I can't believe I'm typing these words...) will take place in Gand on Wednesday morning.
Leopard Trek riders are remembering WW Special with some messages written on their website (link: http://www.leopardtrek.lu/remembering-wouter ) in their own mother tongues. Here's the translation of what Davide Viganò and Luca Guercilena wrote:
Davide Viganò: 'In this moment I’d like to say you a thousand things and, at the same time, I would like to remain silent. I would like to share with you other serene moments, with the smile on our faces, together with the team, in the peloton.
I would like to relive the successes of the past in an even better way, because in this moment I feel as if I haven’t lived them intensely enough.
Ciao WW Special, I’ll miss you…'
Luca Guercilena: "'What do you think man?' That's how you started our conversations every time you wanted some advice, an idea or even just an opinion about your life as a rider.
"I'll miss being able to give you an answer, I'll miss your serene smile every time we found a solution, I'll miss the times when you said 'Grinta' in Italian to make me understand that everything was clear.
"Now nothing is clear anymore. I say goodbye to you and I'm sure that you'll give us the Grinta and a smile to make us go straight towards the finish-line".

Still talking about Wouter, a little anedocte regarding the stage that his colleagues dedicated to him. While riding, Gorazd Stangelj saw a child who had written 'Wouter froever in our hearts' on a cartel. Moved, he tried to give the kid his water bottle, but the kid didn't see it on time and failed to grab it. Therefore Peter Stetina, who saw the scene, solved the problem by giving his own water bottle to the child. Cyclists can be such nice people...

Brief post about today's stage and UCI suspicious list:

Just a little brief communication from me: the comments that you had left on my last post have disappeared because of Blogger's maintenance. Also the post I had written about yesterday's stage disappeared with them and this fact really freaks me out.
I'm sorry that you weren't able to read my blog properly in the last 24 hours, but it didn't depend on my will. On the other hand, I understand that a website like Blogger really needs a lot of maintenance works and I thank those who do them.

It is very late in the evening here in Italy, so I'll just say a very few things about today:
1. Chapeau to Bart De Clerq, who attacked with 8 kms to go and won today's stage, which had a summit finish. He's just 24 and he started riding when he was 18, so I think this is a huge success for him. Bart dedicated his victory to Wouter Weylandt (*sigh*). However, dear Bart, could you please not make me have a heart attack the next time you win? This afternoon I screamed so much when I saw that Scarponi was oversprinting you!
2. Chapeau also to Niemiec, who did a wonderful job for Scarponi. And hey, third in the stage was Kreuziger! :O
3. A special mention goes to Johnny Hoogerland, who made a great attack on the day of his 28th birthday. Another special mention goes to Pirazzi, who attacked twice even today.
4. In spite of what la Gazzetta said, Weening managed to keep the pink jersey. Mwhahahaha!
5. Nice to see De Greef at the front. I like that guy.

Talking about other cycling-related things, here's an interesting link: http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/ucis-suspicious-list-leaked-from-2010-tour-de-france . L'Equipe in fact has recently received a leak about the doping suspects that UCI had (and still has) on some riders. The results '0' and '1' correspond to 'No suspects at all', results from '2' to '5' correspond to 'he had an anormality in his biologic passport, but it can happen', results from '6' to '10' say 'this rider has probably doped'. Here's part of the list:

0 : Mario Aerts, Yukiya Arashiro, Michael Barry, Francesco Bellotti, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Lars Boom, Maxime Bouet, Pavel Brutt, Fabian Cancellara, Manuel Cardoso, Dries Devenyns, Samuel Dumoulin, Julien El Farès, Simon Gerrans, Anthony Geslin, Bert Grabsch, Christopher Horner, Robert Hunter, Kristjan Koren, Brett Lancaster, David Le Lay, Christophe Le Mével, Adriano Malori, Koes Moerenhout, Amael Moinard, Lloyd Mondory, Damien Monier, Juan Jose Oroz, Remi Pauriol, Mathieu Perget, Gregory Rast, Mark Renshaw, Nicolas Roche, Jurgen Roelandts, Pierre Rolland, Anthony Roux, Jeremy Roy, Mathieu Sprick, Rein Taaramae, Sebastien Turgot, Niki Terpstra, Brian Vandborg, Kristof Vandewalle, Ivan Velasco, Thomas Voeckler, Fabian Wegmann, David Zabriskie

1 : Marcus Burghardt, Sandy Casar, Anthony Charteau, Sylvain Chavanel, Julian Dean, Mickael Delage, Martin Elmiger, Johannes Fröhlinger, Jakob Fuglsang, Robert Gesink, Xavier Florencio, Adam Hansen, Ryder Hesjedal, George Hincapie, Andreas Klier, Roger Kluge, Alexander Kuchinsky, Daniel Lloyd, Mirco Lorenzetto, Martijn Maaskant, Aitor Pérez, Alan Pérez, Jerome Pineau, Ruben Plaza, Alexandre Pliuschin, MaartenTjallingii, Rafael Valls, Maarten Wynants

2: Eros Capecchi, Mark Cavendish, Stephen Cummings, Remy Di Gregorio, Arkaitz Duran, Mathias Frank, Oscar Freire, John Gadret, Francesco Gavazzi, Volodymir Gustov, Thor Hushovd, Christophe Kern, Thomas Löfkvist, Sebastien Minard, Daniel Navarro, Grischa Niermann, Stuart O'Grady, Rubén Pérez, Christophe Riblon, Thomas Rohregger, L. L. Sanchez, Carlos Sastre, Fränk Schleck, Simon Spilak, Bram Tankink, Stijn Vandenbergh, Benoit Vaugrenard, Jens Voigt, Eduard Vorganov

3: Ivan Basso, Grega Bole, Brent Bookwalter, Dimitri Champion, Gerald Ciolek, Rui Costa, Damiano Cunego, Mauro Da Dalto, Francis De Greef, Markus Eibegger, Imanol Erviti, Tyler Farrar, Fabio Felline, Juan Antonio Flecha, Maxim Iglinskiy, Vasil Kiryienka, Roman Kreuziger, Matthieu Ladagnous, Robbie McEwen, Maxime Monfort, Sergio Paulinho, Joaquin Rodriguez, Andy Schleck, Chris Anker Sörensen, Sylvester Szmyd, Paolo Tiralongo, Amets Txurruka, Johan Van Summeren, Gorka Verdugo, Charles Wegelius

4: Lance Armstrong, Janez Brajkovic, Bernhard Eisel, Cadel Evans, Pierrick Fédrigo, Juan Manuel Garate, Andriy Grivko, Jesus Hernandez, Ignatas Konovalovas, Sebastian Lang, Levi Leipheimer, David Millar, Daniel Moreno, Serge Pauwels, Manuel Quinziato, Luke Roberts, Samuel Sanchez, Christian Vande Velde, Nicolas Vogondy

5: Alessandro Ballan, Matti Breschel, Alberto Contador, Cyril Gautier, Inaki Isasi, Sergei Ivanov, Vladimir Karpets, Alexandr Kolobnev, Karsten Kroon, Steve Morabito, Benjamin Noval, Jose Rojas, Nicki Sörensen, Alexander Vinokourov, Bradley Wiggins

6: Linus Gerdemann, Christian Knees, Egoi Martínez, Alessandro Petacchi, Francesco Reda, Mauro Santambrogio, Geraint Thomas (Geraint?!? And Linus? What the hell are they doing here?)

7: Jeremy Hunt, Andreas Klöden, Tony Martin, Christophe Moreau, Michael Rogers, Wesley Sulzberger (Toni? That Toni Martin? Are we sure?)

8: David De la Fuente, Ivan Gutiérrez, Danilo Hondo, Matthew Lloyd, Iban Mayoz, Dmitriy Muravyev, Rinaldo Nocentini, Daniel Oss, Kevin Seeldraeyers, Kanstantsin Siutsou, Jurgen Van Den Broeck

9: Denis Menchov (WHAAAAAAT????)

10: Carlos Barredo,Yaroslav Popovych

I'm pretty shocked by this list because I didn't expect guys like Menchov, Rogers, Martin, Siutsou and Oss to receive such negative results. Luckily, I was also quite relieved by the points received by other guys (lo Schlecks :). What do you think of this list?

The show must go on:

Yesterday was a very hard day for the whole cycling family. In fact the Giro riders didn't cope with the traditionally busy flat stage they had on schedule, but they had to face a long, tiring march in order to say goodbye to one of their friends, Wouter Weylandt, who abandoned the peloton on Monday afternoon.

Surprisingly, yesterday I managed to keep the tears in check until the riders reached the last km of the stage. I had resisted the terrible image of mrs. Weylandt kneeling down where her son died, I had resisted the sight of Ann-Sophie putting a red heart where her boyfriend abandoned this life, but that last km was too much for me to take. At that point, all of a sudden, I found myself crying like a baby together with Tyler Farrar, with Fabian Wegmann, with Davide Viganò, with the whole Leopard Trek and with the whole cycling family. Wouter's teammates looked so down that I would have liked to take a car and drive to Livorno just to give them a big hug. Farrar was a destroyed man, whereas the support of the tifosi really did move me.
My father decided not to watch yesterday race. He's as sensitive as me and at funerals we're always the first ones to burst into tears. I knew that watching yesterday stage would have caused me to cry, but I felt like I had to watch it. You can't watch cycling just when things are going well: you must watch it also on sad days like yesterday. It's on these occasions that cycling needs its big family to stay close and, being unable to watch the stage in person, all I could do was watching it on my telly. It was like watching a colourful, long funeral. 4 hours of procession, no coffins and the feeling that Wouter was there, together with the Leopard riders and with his friend Tyler. '108 presente', as thousands of people said during the parcours.
'Those who really die are those who remain in this life', Marco Pastonesi wrote on today Gazzetta. In my opinion, this is one of the big truths of human life. After all, what comes after death? Perhaps there's another life as a different human being; perhaps there's a Paradise where, I'm sure, Wouter has met his old friend Frederiek Nolf; or perhaps, and this is the most dreadful idea, after death there is nothing. Anyway I'm sure that, after a person dies, the people who suffer more are those who remain in this life. Those who'll have to go on without a son, a husband, a brother, a father or a friend.
'Those who die are those who remain'. Those who remain in this life and also those who remain still, blocked by shock and horror. It may sound insensitive but, in moments like this, the best thing to do would be to take the time to mourn the loss and then try to go back to normality as soon as you can. It's impossible to make it in a few months / years time, but it's the only way to keep on living.

This morning, Leopard Trek decided to leave the Giro. In this case there isn't a wrong decision: everything the riders would have chosen, it would have been right. Hopefully the boys will manage to find a bit of peace in their houses, with their loved ones near.
Also Sporza's commentator has decided to abandon the race, just like Tyler Farrar. Moreover, this was the last Giro for the race number '108'. In fact, the Giro organisers have decided to retire it as a sign of respect for WW Special.
If you want to do something concrete to help Wouter's family, on http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/leopard-trek-create-donation-account-to-help-weylandts-family there are some info about how you can make donations to Ann-Sophie and to the whole family of outer. They will have the toughest task in the future, especially because the surreal atmosphere of these days will soon be gone and they will finally be able to realise the gravity of their loss. May they have all the stength of this world, because they're really gonna need it.

As I said previously, the best thing to do in these cases is to try going back to normal life. Although I didn't know Wouter, the last two days have been pretty hard for me and, honestly, today I didn't feel like watching the Giro. But then I saw that the riders, although they were probably feeling much worse than me, were doing their best to honour the race, so I watched the last part of the stage. Here I'm writing some observations of mine about it.
First of all, it must be said that today stage was pretty dangerous. In fact the cyclists had to face some gravel roads and, as you all know, gravel can be very tricky (when I was little, I had some very epic crashes on the gravel road outside my house... ). Obviously safety is a very hot topic right now and some riders have complained for the difficulty of the parcours. However, I think it's too late to complain about the parcourses now: if the riders really didn't want to face the gravel roads, they should have said it before, when the Giro route was announced.
Anyway, I agree with Di Luca about the fact that road cyclists should race on roads, because they're not cyclocross riders and they're not mountain bike riders. If a rider wants to ride on gravel roads, he can go to Eroica. And the same goes for the Tour: if someone wants to race on cobblestones, he can go go to Roubaix. It should be up to the riders to decide whether they want to ride on gravel roads or cobblestones, it shouldn't be the GT organisers that force the guys to face such particular terrains!
Said that, we can go on.
On the gravel descents Nibali showed a lot of braveness, whereas Tankink clearly looked in troubles. Many riders crashed and the most unlucky guy was poor Tom Slagter. Surprisingly, his crash didn't occur on a gravel descent, but in an asphalt part of the stage.
As soon as I saw the Rabobank rider lying on the asphalt, I froze. 'Here we go again!', I thought. Saxo Bank and Euskaltel's mechanics were screaming and Tom wasn't moving and looked unconscious. Then, luckily, he started moving his legs and he started talking. He was immediately taken to the hospital, where he discovered he has broken his eye orbit bone and that he's suffered a concussion. Hopefully he'll feel better soon.
Some of the other riders who crashed were Cataldo, Kiryenka (he fell in a really stupid way), Millar and Vicioso. These last two riders touched wheels with one another and fell together. Not a very lucky Giro for them, since Millar has worn the Maglia Rosa on two of the saddest days in cycling history, whereas Vicioso has won the saddest stage ever. I don't want to imagine how he felt right after he had won, when his ds told him through the radio: 'I'm really sorry, Angel, but something very bad has happened...', making his joy disappear all of a sudden. The poor boy burst into tears as soon as he got to know about Wouter and no one will remember his stage win as a happy one.
However, the riders weren't the only ones who had problems on the gravel roads: Savoldelli's motorbike in fact got blocked in the middle of a gravel climb and he had to push it for a lot of meters. Before he had that problem, Paolo had mentioned a Vacansoleil rider who was 'cursing while riding' and another cyclist (Reda) who stopped at the side of the road in order to let the white dust provoked by the cars disappear. Reda didn't hop back on his bike as long as the white dust disappeared and I think this is a very funny anedocte.
Talking about the race, Martin Kohler broke clear of the peloton after 12 kms and he was caught with 11 kms to go: chapeau to him!
Niemiec was very good, Nibali was extremely brave, Tankink was very unlucky, Stetina showed he's a true cycling promise, Lovkvist said 'I'm here too!', Di Luca rode without saddle and John Gadret attacked very often. But in the end, the winner du jour was the skinny Pieter Weening from Rabobank, who won the stage and got the Maglia Rosa from Millar. He looked very enthusiastic after the finish-line and I'm very happy for him and for Tien & Marleen from Ride On! ;) Before closing this post, I have some quick communications for you all:
First of all, the girls at 'Bananas about Bikes' would like to create a little tribute post for Wouter Weylandt. Therefore, if you have pictures / supporter's stories regarding him, we'd be very happy to receive them and publish them in the next days. As you know, our e-mail address is bananasaboutbikes@gmail.com . Every contribution would be very much welcomed.
Still talking about the poor Wouter, I didn't answer the comments that some of you wrote about my last post because I think there's nothing to add to what we all have already said.
Third thing to say, in the next days I'll probably try to bring back some cheerfulness on this webpage: anyway, I want you to know that I'll always remember WW Special.

Pic 1 by Riccardo Scanferla; pic 2 by Bettini (Rabobank Orange + Giro Pink = No, not again!!!)