Miss Fede's Giro Review, part 1: the first week

Alright, I know. The Giro ended more than a week ago, and I still haven't written anything about it. My apologies and my sincere thanks to the faithful readers who in the last few weeks have kept on checking this blog anyway. You're amazing!  Talking about my long silence, I'd like to reassure everyone: luckily the earthquakes that have recently taken place in Italy didn't cause any big problem here in Lombardy. However, I send a huge and heartfelt 'sorry' to those who got worried by my long silence. My readers are the best ones in the world, no doubts about that! :D

Back to my lack of posts here on Blogger, it was due to a series of reasons. First and foremost, in May I had to study for 3 exams, so that I barely had the time to watch the Giro on tv, let alone writing about it. Secondly, I've discovered that if I spent too much time writing here on Blogger, my head starts aching. You may think this is caused by the black background of my blog (seriously, that background is my biggest regret about this blog!), but I've actually noticed that my head aches more if I write in black on a white background than when I write in white on a black background. I know, I'm strange. Thirdly, even when the exams were over, I was so exhausted that I couldn't get myself together and write something decent here. I'm sorry.

However, after this prelude, the moment to talk about the Tour of Italy has finally arrived. What happened during this amazing race? Who won? Who lost? In this long post (the first one of a series of 3) you will find some of the answers to these questions. Enjoy!

STAGE 3, Horsens - Horsens: how Ferrari became famous

Alright, dear readers. Be ready to follow me in a very complicated work of brain. Let's start.  'Horsens' sound a bit like 'horse', and a horse is the symbol of the famous Italian car brand Ferrari. 'What the h*** are you saying, miss Fede? We understand that your head is aching, but please, get back to cycling!', I hear you say. Well, dear readers, don't panic and trust me. 'Ferrari' in fact was the key word to the 3rd stage of the 2012 Giro d'Italia. Why? Well, here's the scene: the race is almost over, there are about 500 meters to go. Sky is leading the race, Mark Cavendish looks ready to sprint, and so do Mark Goss, Arnaud Demare ('Allleeeeez!', Fangirl screams with a perfect French accent), Tyler Farrar and Mark Renshaw. Last curve, here they go, no one crashes ('Thanks God!', Logic goes, 'I hate those curves!'), the sprint is on: Cavendish has just begun to accelerate when suddenly... 'Oh my, what a terrible crash!', Fangirl goes. 'Geez, Cavendish has crashed too!', Logic adds. 'Oh my God, and Taylor Phinney looks bad! Oh my, he's crashed too, poor thing!', Fangirl screams in fear. 'Oh, it looks like Goss has won', Logic says with her cold voice. 'What, Matthew Goss won? Well, but who cares right now? I mean, Taylor Phinney, my Taylor Phinney, is lying on the asphalt and you dare to tell me that Matthew Goss has won? Are you crazy? And oh my God, Taylor really looks in pain! Look at his ankle! Do you see anything? Do you think it's broken? Oh my God, why?!?!', Fangirl cries out. 'Oh my, shut up you stupid brainless thing. His injury doesn't look that serious. Look, he's walking towards the podium without problems', Logic states. 'Are you kidding me?', Fangirl immediately replies. ' 'He's walking towards the podium without problems?' Are you serious? Look at his foot, poor thing! Look at the pictures on Twitter! His ankle has turned to violet, you stupid thing, you *hsdkfeyghgdfjh* (*Fangirl starts insulting Logic*)'

Alright, forgive me for that. I guess I got too carried away while giving you an insight of what happened in my head after the crash of stage 3. Anyway, back to Ferrari: let's watch the replay and let me explain you why that was the key word of the day. As I said, with about 300 meters to go everything was ready for a sprint. Then, all of a sudden, Roberto Ferrari and Mark Cavendish started accelerating at the same time. And, all of a sudden (lots of things happen 'all of a sudden' during sprints), Ferrari went to the left side of the road, making Cavendish crash. The young Favilli (he's 23 but he and his wife already have a 3 year-old baby!) litterally hopped over Cavendish, whereas Demare avoided the World Champion by riding 0.00000001 cm far from his head. Unfortunately, other riders weren't so lucky: Phinney crashed against Cavendish and so did  Modolo and many other guys. At the end of the stage, as Phinney slowly and painfully walked to the podium, Cavendish was probably trying to assault the Diquigiovanni Androni bus to try and strangle Ferrari. Ferrari who, after the crash, looked absolutely calm. 'What? I've caused a crash? Nah, you must be wrong. It was Cavendish who hurt me from behind and, at my place, those who hit your bike from behind are always wrong'. These were the first things that Roberto told the press - and, of course, this didn't help Cavendish and the other 290 riders of the peloton to calm down.

As Gianni Savio (director of Diquigiovanni) appeared on Italian tv trying to apologise for what his rider had done, the jury took a decision related to the crash: Roberto Ferrari was considered guilty of causing the crash and was therefore relegated to the last position in the stage. Of course this decision caused many angry comments because, even if everyone knows that Ferrari didn't cause the crash intentionally, it was clear that the Italian rider risked to send home many riders because of his irresponsible move. However, Roberto was lucky and could continue his Giro. Cavendish, on the other hand, had to deal with big injuries on his leg and shoulder, whereas mr. 'I get more and more funnier and fascinating as the stages go by', aka Taylor Phinney, risked to abandon the Corsa Rosa because of his swollen ankle. Luckily on the following day the riders could enjoy a rest day after an airplane transfer to Italy.

Funny fact du jour: Italian tv filmed and broadcasted the technical meeting that took place on Colnago bus right before the start of this stage. When asked about the parcours, Modolo stated that he had checked it out on the 'Garibaldi' (the book that contains every info about the race, the parcourses, the starting and arrival points, ecc) and stated that 'the last 5 kms don't have any curve'. As you can imagine, his ds got mad at that.

STAGE 4, Verona-Verona: TTT drama

After the rest day, the Giro show was ready to continue with a TTT. The day began with the latest news about the Ferrari-Cavendish drama. Ferrari, after watching the replay of his sprint, admitted causing the crash and went to apologise to Mark and his team. Still, the World Champion told Italian tv that he hadn't forgiven Ferrari, because 'it is clear that he apologised to me just in order to get more attention from the medias'. Lovely, lovely Mark.

The Verona-Verona TTT saw Katusha getting the best result after a few minutes of race. Surprisingly, the Russian team eventually came in 2nd in the stage, to the joy of Joaquin Rodriguez and his ds.

However, everyone's attention on the day of the TTT was focused on two teams: BMC and Garmin. BMC had the maglia rosa thanks to the injured Phinney, who had previously said that he wanted to keep the jersey at least until the 6th stage. Garmin instead had Navardauskas and Rasmussen, aka the two riders who were following Phinney down the GC.

Garmin began the time trial right before BMC. This latter team immediately looked less brilliant than usual and the sight of the compression sock that Phinney was wearing caused Fangirl to feel even more sorry for him. Garmin, on the other hand, looked determined to get the victory and soon scored a very good time. A few seconds later, two surprises arrived. Firstly, Rasmussen (who at the beginning of the stage was 2nd in the GC) got dropped and his team didn't wait for him. Secondly, Taylor Phinney ended up in a grass field together with some of his teammates and lost a lot of time because of that and because of his (not that useless) attempt of taking some grass off his pedals. 'Go Taylor, gooooo!' Fangirl started screaming in that moment 'Nah, you didn't even know who he was until a few days ago!', Logic told her. 'You're a liar!!', Fangirl went at that point. 'I've always known who he was; he simply grew on me all of a sudden in the last 48 hours, what's the problem? Are you jealous because your favourite rider (Menchov) isn't here and you've got no one to support?' Logic replied, as usual, in a very cold way. 'I'm not jealous, dear. Actually, I really do appreciate Taylor too. He speaks perfect Italian and that's amazing, I agree with you. And he's also fun. And he really seems a very down-to-Earth guy. However, do you know what? You can support Taylor, I'll support Navardauskas. He's got a nice name, isn't it?' Given that at the time Navardauskas was 2nd in the GC with a very little delay from Phinney, you can imagine the fight that Fangirl and Logic had during the last part of the stage. 

In the end, Ramunas Navardauskas took the maglia rosa after making Logic suffer in an incredible way. Poor Ramunas in fact seemed on the verge of getting dropped every 2 seconds, but eventually made it to the finish-line with his teammates (and with a great help from Hesjedal, who literally looked after Navy for the whole stage). Ramunas and his team eventually finished the stage by riding 31" faster than Phinney and his team and this allowed them not only to get the pink jersey for just 10", but also to win the stage. Navardauskas looked very happy after the finish-line and was incredibly cute in his post-stage interview. Then, right before stepping on the podium to get the Maglia Rosa, he looked amazingly sweet also with the child that had to accompany him on the podium ('See, he's already married with children!', Fangirl told Logic at that point. 'You stupid, this year the Giro riders step on the podium together with a random child, but this doesn't mean they're married with children! You can't even understand those things, what would you do without me?', Logic replied in an angry way; 'And then, I don't like Navardauskas just because he's cute; I like him because he's strong'. At that point, Fangirl replied with a 'that's what everyone says', which caused another big riot between her and Logic).

As Navardauskas and his team were enjoying their moment of happiness, Taylor Phinney looked very sad and was probably in big pain because of his ankle. Still, he was nice enough to hug all his teammates and speak to the journalists in a very calm way. Chapeau!

Oh, and talking about teams: one of Navardauskas' s teammates on the TTT day was Tyler Farrar. The American rider was a big friend of Wouter Weylandt, who tragically passed away during last year Giro. The riders remembered him and the mayor of Horsens (who had a heart attack on the day of the second stage) at the start of the 3rd stage of this Giro. Still, it's moving to notice that Tyler Farrar won the Giro TTT exactly one year after the death of his friend :(

STAGE 5, Modena-Fano: Daddy Cavendish wins in front of Delilah

This stage was considered suitable to sprinters, and in fact, it ended in a bunch sprint. As soon as it began, 4 riders went on a breakaway: they were Bulgac, Kaisen, De Marchi and De Negri (these last 3 riders took part in lots of breakaways :P). Unfortunately, the 4 brave athletes were caught with about 20 kms to go. In the meanwhile, nothing interesting had happened in the peloton. 'You're wrong!', Fangirl suddenly interrupts me. 'Something did happen! My poor Taylor crashed again and Radioshack team car almost ran over him!' 'Fangirl, you're such a boring creature', Logic replies. ' 'Phinney crashed'; shall we really consider it a news? I mean, he crashes once every 40 km!' (*Fangirl starts punching Logic while screaming things that should never be written in a public blog*).

Alright, sorry for that. So, where were we? Phinney crashed, the peloton caught the breakaway riders and here we went with another sprint. Surprisingly no one crashed and Cavendish took a wonderful victory in front of Goss and Bennati. Mark's result was special not only because he achieved it in spite of his injuries, but especially because on that day the little Delilah Cavendish (who was obviously dressed in pink) attended a cycling race for the first time in her life. And in fact, right after the end of the stage, Cavendish jumped inside the 'happy and proud daddy' role and reached his girlfriend Peta and his little girl ('my two princesses', as he calls them), spending a few, lovely family moments with them. Awwh!

Embarassing moment du jour: while watching Cavendish kissing his girlfriend, mother went: 'Oh my God, she's gorgeous!  She must be some kind of model... Do you know what she does for a living?' Mum, are you sure you want to know?

STAGE 6, Urbino-Ponto Sant'Elpidio: drama at the Giro

Alright, here we are: this stage is one of the biggest regrets of my personal Giro. In fact everyone told me it was really exciting, but unfortunately I couldn't watch it because of university. So annoying!

Still, I managed to get home during one of the key moments of the stage. As RAI journalists were rejoicing for Malori's maglia rosa and me was struggling to find out the name of the stage winner (Rubiano), a news arrived: Cavendish, Phinney, Brown, Bos, Van Winden, Hunt, Rosseler and Eisel were still far from the finish-line and they were desperately trying to end the stage in the time limit. It was moving to see these athletes racing for different teams riding together as if they were facing a TTT and it was moving to think about the stories of some of the riders inside that little group. Cavendish, for example, had won the previous stage and had suffered big injuries in the Horsens stage, just like Phinney, who had worn the maglia rosa for 3 days. Van Winden had crashed in one of the early stages, whereas Hunt and Eisel were risking to finish their Giro in a very sad way just because they were trying to help their captain. While Italian journalists were discussing the riders' chances to make it to the finish-line within the time cut, both Logic and Fangirl were supporting the unlucky riders (Fangirl was also insulting Ferrari, but that's another story). In the end, since the Giro sometimes is a bit like a fairy tale in which everything ends well, all these riders luckily made it into the time cut, causing Fangirl to start dancing and singing happily.

Unfortunately, during this stage many riders retired and amongst them there were also big names like Hushovd and Farrar. But why did this stage cause so many problems?

First of all, it was a tricky stage, since it included different climbs. Secondly, for the first time since they had left Denmark the riders had to face a very warm weather. Thirdly, perhaps some riders (and some supporters -->; me) underestimated this stage.

A few kms after the start in Urbino, a breakaway formed by Rubiano, Malori, Golas, Balloni, Bauer, Benedetti, Dyachenko, Smukulis and Roberts took off. With about 45 kms to go, Rubiano attacked and managed to cross the finish-line solo. Italian TT champion Adriano Malori (a young and promising rider) ended the race 1'10" behind the Spaniard and, by outsprinting the Polish Golas in order to get the 12" time bonus, the Lampre rider managed to get the pink jersey. In fact poor Navardauskas had been dropped from the peloton much earlier (Logic got desperate for that) and had to abandon the maglia rosa. Still, after a hard stage like this, everyone was looking forward to the following day, that presented the first uphill finish of this Giro - and, amongst those who dreamt of wearing the pink jersey after the Rocca di Cambio day, there was a certain Ryder Hesjedal.

STAGE 7, Recanati - Rocca di Cambio: the begin of Canadian dominance

The 7th stage ended on a short climb in a very pictoresque village called Rocca di Cambio. Rodriguez, Scarponi, Schleck, Kreuziger and Basso were all looking forward to this stage, which someone wanted to win and which someone else feared. The big showdown arrived in the last 2 kms of race, when Scarponi attacked and opened a gap between himself and the other GC contenders. Still, a man managed to remain glued to Michele's wheel: it was Paolo Tiralongo, Kreuziger's helper and winner of the Macugnaga stage at the 2011 Giro. For a long moment it looked like Scarponi was going too fast for everyone else. But then, Michele slowed down and Paolo took advantage of that and managed to win the stage by outsprinting the Lampre rider. Right after the stage, Tiralongo lied down, exhausted, while the other GC riders ended their race. Schleck was an excellent third, Rodriguez 4th, Hesjedal 5th, Pozzovivo 6th, Basso 8th. Kreuziger lost 11" and was considered the 'loser' du jour.
I was really happy for Tiralongo's victory, especially because many people saw his triumph in Macugnaga as a simple gift from his friend Contador. That always made me angry, because I hate it when riders win stages and people say that they won just because someone else allowed them to cross the finish-line in first. A victory is a victory, no matter if your adversary didn't sprint because he wanted to do you a favour!
Another thing that really made me (and Fangirl) happy on that day was Schleck's placement (the Luxembourger came in 3rd, right ahead of Joaquin Rodriguez). I personally saw that placement as a sign of Frank's will of doing well in the Italian race and I was absolutely pleased by that.
Talking about the GC, something very important happened in Rocca di Cambio: in fact, Ryder Hesjedal got the pink jersey from Adriano Malori. As soon as that happened, my uncle knocked on the door of my house. He stormed in with a big smile on his face and told me: 'I think Hesjedal will win the Giro. Just wait and see. I wanted to bet on him last week, but his name wasn't listed nowhere. I'l wait a couple of days and then go back to the betting point. Seriously, that boy is the strongest climber in this race and he'll demonstrate it soon'. While my uncle was happily talking to me, an Italian journalist, asked about Hesjedal's chances to keep the jersey for some days, said: 'The Canadian could keep the jersey for  3, 4 days, but I think that then he'll have to give it up'. At that point uncle and I started criticising the journalist, telling him that Ryder had the skills to keep the jersey for the rest of the race. Unfortunately, my tv screen divided us from the journalist, so that he couldn't hear our wise words.
STAGE 8, Sulmona - Lago Laceno: a little big man on the top of the Giro
The winner of this amazing stage was a musician and economist. 'What? I thought the winner was Pozzovivo!', I hear you say. And, in fact, I was actually referring to him while writing those words. 'Little Big Man' (165  cm x  52 kg) in fact isn't only one of the best climbers out there: he can also play the piano very well (he played 'New York, New York' on Italian tv), has a first level degree in Economy, a lovely accent and also has the same idea as me as far as Italian government is concerned. Moreover, he's single. 'It took me eight years to get this victory in the Giro, I won't have problems waiting until I meet the right girl', he told the journalists after his amazing victory in Lago Laceno. Journalists who this year really did their best to find girlfriends to the Giro boys. Firstly, some of them tried to get Taylor Phinney a girlfriend (a former cyclist even told Taylor that he has 'a nice niece ready for a husband', causing the American to cover his face with his hand in a pretty embarassed way), whereas Alessandra De Stefano once told Pozzovivo that a girl had called RAI, saying she wanted to become Domenico's girlfriend. Nice, isn't it?
Back to the stage, it was a pretty good one. The GC riders kept on looking at each other, when suddenly Pozzovivo attacked and managed to win solo. The Colnago rider attacked with 7 kms to go and managed to win in spite of Intxausti's chase and of the 2 flat kms that divided the top of the Lago Laceno climb from the finish-line. After the finish-lime Pozzovivo was really happy, especially because he got this vicory not far from his home.
As for the GC, nothing changed during this stage and Ryder Hesjedal kept his jersey without problems. Last rider to cross the finish-line was Andrea Guardini, whereas Van Winden and Bennati got retired.

So, these were the first stages of the Giro. Coming up during next week, miss Fede's take on the second week of race. Stay tuned! :)