Vuelta, Padania and the Leopard Trek / Radioshack affaire:

Ladies and gentlemen, miss Fede is happy to announce you that she's finally come back from her great holiday in Senigallia, a seaside town located in 'shitty Italy' - as someone called it a few days ago.

My holiday was excellent, although reading the newspapers everyday caused me to get very angry almost daily - and not just because of political / economical reasons. Anyway, let's go in order and talk about cycling.

First of all I must say that, as predictable, I won the virtual bet that I had made with my father: in fact, the tv in our little flat in Senigallia didn't broadcast the Vuelta. As a consequence, no cycling races for me in the last two weeks. However, I did manage to keep myself in touch with the cycling world thanks to 'la Gazzetta dello Sport' and, in this way, I soon realised that my Vuelta predictions were terribly wrong. In fact Antòn was dropped during the first mountain stage, whereas Rodriguez and Menchov couldn't get any good result. Nibali was the most active rider in the first 10 days of race, but then he couldn't keep the pace of Wiggins on the hardest Spanish climbs. Nevertheless, I really loved his racng style in that first week of competition. Vincenzo in fact always manages to make races become exciting and he attacks whenever he has the chance. He probably isn't the best climber out there (nor is he the best time trialist), but the boy has passion and determination. Moreover, when I watch him racing I have the feeling that he wants the race to be exciting and entertaining for the supporters - a thing that I completely approve. So, Vincenzo: don't get angry because of your final GC result because you've made us dream sweet dreams anyway ;)

Unfortunately for us Italians, Nibali wasn't the only 'azzurro' who had problems during the Spanish race: Scarponi in fact abandoned the race after a few stages ('I don't know what's going on, I feel tired', he told la Gazzetta) and Petacchi and Bennati still haven't won anything. The young Gavazzi, on the other hand, shone two days ago, when he won the Nojas stage ahead of Vandewalle.

So far, however, the riders who have had the best results in this Vuelta are Chris Froome and Juan José Cobo: in fact the Kenyan rider won a mountain stage and is now second in the GC, whereas JJ 'Buffalo' Cobo is the race leader with just two stages to go. Wiggins, instead, is 3rd: hadn't he broken his collarbone in July, I believe he would have been on the TdF podium.

Talking about other races: the Tour of Colorado saw some good victories by Viviani and Oss and an interesting breakaway by Schleck the Younger, whereas Gilbert has recently won GP Quebec. That man is a monster, no doubts about that!

Another competition who's receiving a lot of attention in these days is the so-called 'Giro di Padania', which is a stage race organised by the Northern League, an Italian right-winged party which would like to cut Italy in two parts: Padania and the South. The people who are part of this party are a bit, well, odd and they show their peculiarities even during this race: after every stage in fact the daily winner gets a 'golem' which represents a cyclist riding in front of the Cervino, whereas the second rider to cross the finish-line receives a shield which, if necessary, can become a spade (everyone would love to own one, right?); the third rider instead receives a M-shaped pyramid (no, I'm not drunk, it's written on the website of the race) with some runes on. As if this wasn't enough, the race started from the Monviso, where the son of the leader of the party, Renzo 'The Trout' Bossi, took some water from the 'Holy River Po' and put it in a little bottle. Some of you may think that the Northern League is just a little party formed by strange people who read too many medieval books, but unfortunately some Italian ministers belong to it and even make some laws. One of the most important members of the party, the above-mentioned 'Trout' (son of the party lader Umberto), had to take the Matura exam three times before being able to pass it. Nevertheless, he earns 12.000 euros pro month because he's a politician. And guess what? The money of his wage obviously derive from the taxes that we poor stupid people pay. Yes, sometimes I need to quote our beloved first Minister: Italy is a really shitty country. 

Anyway, after explaining what the Northern League is, let's go back to the Giro di Padania: given its political origin, this race has recently been sharply criticised. The Italian Cycling Federation couldn't change its name and many riders decided to take part in it because, all in all, this race offers an interesting parcours and takes place right before the Worlds. Unfortunately for these riders, in the last days they had to bear lots of insults ('Sons of b****es', 'Betrayers' and 'Bastards' were the most popular ones), they had to be careful not to ride over people laid down in the middle of the roads and  a neo pro, Sonny Colbrelli, was even punched on the eye by a 'supporter'. Unfortunately, as usual the ones who take the worst consequences of others' actions are the riders, whereas the politicians simply hide themselves in their big cars with a private chauffeur. Oh, and by the way: so far the race has seen victories by Modolo, Viviani and Basso.

Anyway. After talking about Giro di Padania and Vuelta, let's face a news that really shocked me when I first read it on la Gazzetta. Said news regards the merge between Leopard Trek and Radioshack.

Now, the few people who have been reading this blog since it was created on a cold afternoon back in 2008 may have noticed that, year after year, my attitude towards the Schleck brothers has changed. At first I was the usual Fangirl who just cares about her heroes, but then (luckily!!!) I slowly became a true cycling supporter and I soon learned to criticise even my favourite riders. As I faced these changes, my favourite cyclists grew older and, last year, they changed team. And, as some of you might have noticed it, I never really accepted this change. At first in fact I thought that everything was too secret, then the team PRs started to blow their own trumpets and in the end the ds often seemed unable to make the riders work as a team. Apparently I wasn't the only one who noticed these things, so that the owner of the team, mr. Flavio Becca, recently chose to change things in order to make things better. So, what did our man do? Simple: he had Leopard Trek merged with Team Radioshack.

Now, first question raised by this move: if Becca wanted to improve his team, why merging Leopard with Radioshack when he could have merged it with HTC Columbia? Wait a moment and you'll have a possible answer to this question.

According to la Gazzetta (also known as 'The queen of the rumours which later turn out to be oh so true'), Becca wanted the Shack and Leopard to merge because he was disappointed by the lack of good results that his team had during this season. In particular, at the end of theTdF the disappointed Becca referred to his team by saying: 'I feel like the owner of an excellent airplane with a great crew but without a commander'. Moreover, mr. B was reported to believe that Andy Schleck can't win a Grand Tour without a great ds on his team car. Therefore our man started to look for a great ds who could create a good race strategy for his little Luxembourgian jewel. And whom did he find? Johan Bruyneel, who has always liked Andy and who probably promoted 'Merge-Gate'. In fact, by merging RS and LT los Schlecks got a great ds (a cunning man like Bruyneel) and Becca got the chance of improving his team and sharing the team's costs with an important sponsor.

Unfortunately, there's a little problem in this great economical move: LT in fact has about 25 riders, whereas RS has about 9 riders. And, according to UCI, one single team can have just 28 riders plus 2 neopros pro year. This means that, halfway through September, about 6 former riders from Leopard Trek or Radioshack will find themselves without a contract - and I don't even want to talk about all the bus drivers, soigneurs and so on that will lose their jobs because of this merge (amongst the guys who were fired by LT there is also Brian Nygaard).

Talking about the riders, it is already known that nor Leipheimer nor O'Grady will join this new team (which is called 'Radioshack Nissan Trek' or something like that) because they are heading towards other teams. Apparently, the former Radioshack guys who will be racing for this new team in 2012 may be: the evergreen Chris Horner; ol' Armstrong's helper Kloeden; Janez Brajkovic; Matt Bussche; Markel Irizar; Ben King; Nelson Oliveira; Jesse Sergent; Haimar Zubeldia.

Personally, I would have avoided keeping Horner, Kloden and Brajkovic: can you imagine next year TdF team? Schleck, Schleck, Kloden, Horner, Brajkovic, Kloden, Cancellara, Zubeldia and Voigt. On paper it looks great, but who will sacrifice himself for the others?

Anyway, back to the riders' contracts. The part related to Leopard Trek former athletes looks really tragic: in fact Bruno Pires, Thomas Rohregger and Martin Pedersen are likely to be fired because they all signed a one-year contract. Other riders, instead, found out about the merge just thanks to the media. Amongst those guys there are strong riders like Brice Feillu, Tom Stamsnijder, Joost Posthuma and Jakob Fuglsang. In particular, la Gazzetta claims that the Danish rider may leave Leopard next year. In my opinion, if this happened, it would be a shame: Jakob in fact is one of the best young riders out there, so I think that giving a contract to Horner and not to him would be a very stupid move.

Still talking about Leopard former riders, it is said that even Cancellara might leave los Schlecks. In this way, the Leopards who would end up racing for RNT would be: Daniele Bennati, William Clarke, Stefan Denifl, Linus Gerdemann, Dominik Klemme, Anders Lund, Maxime Monfort, Giacomo Nizzolo, Andy Schleck, Frank Schleck, Davide Viganò, Robert Wagner, Fabian Wegmann, Oliver Zaugg and Jens Voigt. That would leave 3 free spots for some new riders. Given that this summer RS already signed Galoppin, Kruopis and Meersman, and that LT signed Rast and Hermans, now I really wonder who amongst these 5 riders will see his new contract disappear all of a sudden.

As you can understand, this new super team already seems to have lots of problems. Moreover, as if this wasn't enough, I'll add another problem myself. And that problem is: all the team's sponsors are American. Therefore, I think I can already say 'farewell' to the chance of seeing the Schleck brothers racing the Giro or la Vuelta next year. And talking about the Schleck brothers: they often talk about values like friendship and loyalty, but the way they're abandoning the people who last year believed in their new team project (and risked their career because of that) really lets me down. Kim Andersen, Nygaard, Fuglsang, the soigneurs, even the bus driver... They all abandoned their safe jobs in order to start a new adventure, but now they've been let down. I don't know if the brothers are actually involved in this merge but, to be honest, this whole story leaves me angry. Cycling isn't about love, friendship and loyalty, it's about money and success. Too bad that people often pretend to ignore this fact and even manage to take in other people by doing so.

Luckily, there is at least one happy news to cheer us up in this strange month of September: a few days ago in fact An-Sophie De Graeve, girlfriend of the unforgettable Wouter Weylandt, gave birth to the couple's first child. The baby girl was named Alizée, measures 51 centimetres and weighs 3.6 kg . I really wish a lot of strength to her mum and I wish Alizée a long, happy and serene life: little one, your father (and every single cycling supporter on Earh) will always be with you  <3

Remembering WW:

A little sign, after the finish-line: two hands that create a W in the air, not just once, but twice. W W : Wouter Weylandt, the Leopard Trek rider we'll all remember for our whole lives.

The first part of the third stage of the 2011 Tour de France didn't give lots of emotions to the spectators. But still, its final epilogue gave us one of the most touching moments of the year.

For most of the time, the only emotions for the supporters arrived when Gutierrez (one of the breakawayers du jour) decided to joke with the French camera man. For two times in fact the Spanish rider licked the tip of his index finger and then touched the camera lens, forcing the camera man on the motorbike to stop and clean it.

Since the race wasn't that exciting, the Italian chronists had a lot of time to talk about random things. For example, did you know that Riis complained with the jury about Contador's delay after stage one?Here's a recap of what happened.

As you all know, during stage 1 Contador lost contact from the other GC riders after the crash caused by Iglinskiy with 8 kms to go. In the end, Alberto lost about 1' 20" from the Schleck group, although Riis thinks this isn't right. According to Bjarne, in fact, Contador lost time also because of the crash that occurred with 2 kms to go, so his delay after stage 1 should have been the one that he had at the '3 kms to go' mark (43 seconds), and not the one he eventually had at the finish-line. Riis expressed his opinion to the jury, which actually didn't pay any attention to it. Therefore, Conti's delay remained of 1' 20".

Still talking about Contador, I must admit he didn't look that great in an interview he gave to Italian tv this morning. In fact, in it Alberto looked very tired and hadn't even shaved his beard. Moreover, he had a bit of acne (well, sort of) on his forehead. Now, does this mean that Conti is nervous and tired? Or is this a meaningless thing? I don't know how Alberto's skin works but, personally, I get skin problems just when I'm very nervous - and tired. Is this the same also for Bertie? Time will tell.

Back to today's stage, Beppe Saronni said on Italian tv that Alessandro Petacchi isn't feeling very well in these days. In other words: Ale-Jet has a very good form, but his morale is very low as a consequence of a rule that has recently been approved by the Italian Cycling Federation.

Said rule says that those who are banned from cycling after resulting positive at the anti-doping will never be able to take part in the Worlds and in the Italian championships anymore. 'Well, that's a nice rule!', some of you may think. 'What's the problem with it?' Well, the problem with this brand new rule is that it has a retrospective effect. This means that also riders who doped in the past won't be able to take parts in the Worlds anymore.

Amongst the guys who will never be able to take part in the Worlds anymore there are strong guys like Scarponi, Basso and Petacchi and this has obviously caused many polemics here in Italy. In fact, many people think it's unfair to prevent these riders from racing in the Worlds because:

1. when they doped, they couldn't now that they would have lost their chances of representing Italy in the Worlds

2. a rule like that exists just in Italy.

I personally believe that this rule is a very positive one, but I don't really think it should have a retrospective effect. Moreover, I think it's unfair to create it just in Italy. In fact, I don't see why Italians can't have Petacchi in the Worlds, whereas England can have David Millar in the TT and Kazakhstan can have Vinokourov in the road race.

Anyway, I was saying: as a consequence of this new born rule, Petacchi won't be able to take part in the Copenhagen Worlds (the biggest goal of this season for him) and this has really brought him down. Actually, this news has shocked him so much that Petacchi has even threatened he'll race the Copenhagen Worlds for Kazakhstan, if that rule isn't repealed in the next few weeks. Therefore, we can all understand why he isn't in a very focused mood right now.

In spite of all these problems, however, Ale-Jet was in a very good position as the peloton approached the finale of today's stage. In fact he was on Cavendish's wheel, right behind the HTC leadout train. Too bad that the HTC guys all lost themselves in the last curve of the race, so that Garmin could take the best positions at the head of the peloton. Thor Hushovd and Julian Dean did a very good job for Farrar, who eventually managed to win the stage in front of Feillu and Rojas.

As he crossed the finish-line, Tyler created a WW in the air, causing the whole word of Cycledom to get very moved.

"This has been a horrible last two months with everything that happened in the Giro," Farrar told Cyclingnews. "I've had a lot of ups and downs but in the end I wanted to come back and do something special and this is certainly the biggest stage that you can do that. I've trained hard and I could feel I was getting stronger over the last few weeks. It's a little bit unbelievable that it could happen. Everything just came together". And everything comes even more together if we think that Wouter won the third stage of the 2010 Giro, died in the third stage of 2011 Giro and that Tyler won the third stage of 2011 Tour (thanks to Marleen for making me notice this coincidence - if we can call it this way...).

On to other riders, Thor Hushovd kept the yellow jersey, whereas the green one went to Rojas. Talking about the other sprinters, Dumoulin crashed after having a collision with Oss in the last curve. The promising Galimzyanov instead was 11th.

One of my favourite riders, Chris Anker Sorensen, crossed the finish-line 4 minutes after the winner. It wasn't an easy day for Chris, since he had to work a lot at the front of the peloton in order to defend his teammates from the possible echelons. However, I must say that Sorensen also seemed to enjoy his day in the peloton. In fact, first I saw him talking to Voigt, then he rolled towards the finish-line while talking with Navarro and Hernandez (and while fighting hopelessly with his gloves :P).

On to tomorrow, the 4th Tour stage ends on Mur de Bretagne, a 2 kms climb that has some very steep parts (its first km in fact is 10% steep). Gilbert is the main favourite, although I think Cunego could do something good too.

Tomorrow we'll also have to pay a lot attention to the fight for yellow: in fact right now Gilbert (whose birhtday is tomorrow, whereas today was Gusev's birthday) has a delay of 33" from Hushovd, but Evans is just 1" down on Thor. And los Schlecks are just 4" down in the GC, just like Fuglsang and Gerdemann. 

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.

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!!!)

27th of September 1984 - 9th of May 2011

A post that I would have never wanted to write.

Wouter Weylandt passed away a few minutes ago after crashing with 25 kms to go on the Reggio Emilia-Rapallo stage of the Giro. The ambulance arrived immediately after the crash, but they couldn't save him.

I had never supported a rider as much as today. Unfortunately, Wouter lost his most important race.

I don't feel like writing anything else right now. I'd just be able to say stupid clichés. Moreover, I've just started crying and sobbing like a baby - and I'm not good at writing when I'm feeling so bad. Cycling is like a family and right now I feel like I've lost a relative.

My thoughts go to Wouter's family, his parents, his wife, his teammates and his friends. My most sincere condolences go to them.

Rest in peace, Wouter: we'll keep you in our thoughts forever and ever. And this is a promise.