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Milan - San Remo: It's Zabel!
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It looked like a magical finish in the making for the Italian throngs lined up along Via Roma in San Remo. Super Mario, the guy whose face was on half of the T-shirts being hawked in the crowd, had caught back onto the front group on the descent of the Poggio, and he had a four-man Saeco train pulling him to the front.
But Erik Zabel’s Deutsche Telekom train was also working well, and despite Cipollini closing the gap rapidly, he was still a half bike-length behind at the line after charging past world road champion Romans Vainsteins with 25 meters to go.
Almost as big a story Saturday was the enormous crash with just 250 meters to go. The group was in full flight when Mapei’s Stefano Zanini fell, causing almost a dozen other riders to come crashing to the pavement.
Everyone walked away, but it was hard to believe, given the violence of the crash and how many of those involved weren’t wearing helmets. For his part in the crash, Jo Planckaert (Cofidis) was relegated to last in the group (19th place), and fined 200 Swiss francs for his “irregular sprint.” American George Hincapie, whose U.S. Postal soigneurs had promised to shave their heads if he won, got around the left side of the crash to finish ninth.
Hostilities began in earnest in the 287km race right after Sergiy Matveyev (Panaria-Fiordo), the last remaining rider from a four-man break that took off at km 110 was caught on the lower slopes of the Cipressa, with 25km to go.
After a flurry of attacks on this final hurdle before the Poggio, world #1 Francesco Casagrande (Fassa Bortolo) took off up the left side of the road and was shadowed by Alex Vinokourov, as per the Telekom plan. Other riders came up, and Casagrande jumped alone again, holding a 15-second lead over Vinokourov, Mapei’s Paolo Bettini, and Cofidis’ Peter Farazijn at the summit.
Five riders came up to Casagrande on the descent of the Cipressa, but when Vinokourov and others stopped working, it was doomed before the Poggio.
A brief foray by Nico Mattan (Cofidis) was neutralized on the lower slopes of this final climb overlooking the sea, and Zabel stayed in second place behind Vinokourov most of the rest of the way up the climb.
On the false flat a kilometer from the summit, 1996 winner Gabriele Colombo (Cantina Tollo-Aqua&Sapone) attacked and was joined by four others by the summit, but they were caught by the second switchback on the descent.
That set the stage for Cipollini to close the gap to the group alone on the descent and set the stage for the storybook ending that was not to be.
