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Cunego wins the Giro as Petacchi chalks up No. 9
Italy has its new star. Fresh-faced Damiano Cunego (Saeco) raced like a seasoned pro to dominate the 2004 Giro d’Italia.
The blond-haired former junior world champion won four stages and conquered the 20-stage Giro in surprising fashion for a 22-year-old largely unknown beyond Italian cycling just over one month ago.
“This has been a dream race for me,” Cunego said after beating Ukraine Serhiy Honchar (De Nardi) by 2:02. “I would have not believed before I started that I would win this Giro. It’s very satisfying.”
With the 87th Giro d’Italia now part of history, Cunego becomes the youngest winner since Giuseppe Saronni won at 21 in 1979.
“His future is incredible, he can win many races. He’s already four or five years ahead of the others,” said Saeco’s sport director, Giuseppe Martinelli. “He’s not your typical rider. He’s a strong climber, but has a quick sprint.
On Sunday, Cunego rode in pink shorts to go with his maglia rosa in the 149km finale from Clusone to Milano, where Alessandro Petacchi (Fassa Bortolo) shot to an astounding ninth stage victory ahead of Marco Zanotti (Vini Caldirola) and Aart Vierhouten (Lotto-Domo).
"The first win was a liberation and the last was something special, but all the victories were important," Petacchi told Reuters after leading the pack home again on Sunday.
"After three weeks of racing and all the mountain stages I was very tired, but I was pleased the way I won the sprint. I had another great lead-out from my teammates and Zanotti and the other sprinters were well behind me at the line."
But the overall triumph went to Cunego, who insisted that it was a surprise, that that he came to the start in Genova on May 8 with the intention of “learning and helping Simoni win again.”
“It was like a dream to have the jersey in the first week, but I only started to believe I could win the Giro after Falzes,” said Cunego, referring to his dramatic victory in the four-climb, 217km 16th stage.
Cunego launched a solo attack over the Passo Furcia with 70km to go that catapulted him back into the pink jersey. The 1999 junior world champion later held off attacks from teammate Gilberto Simoni and 2000 Giro winner Stefano Garzelli (Vini Caldirola).
“It’s just amazing that he was able to win,” Martinelli said. “He came here to learn, with the idea that he could win in two or three years. No one believed he would win this year.”
Cunego fended off the Italian media in a Sunday-morning press conference, when he was questioned about the split within Saeco. Cunego gave short shrift to touchy questions while he kept fidgeting with his pink jersey. Cunego obviously preferred those rosy thoughts to something as unpleasant as being accused of betraying his team captain.
While Cunego held court, defending champion Simoni sat alone in the next room, quietly flipping through the morning papers. After finishing third at 2:05 back, Simoni made no effort to hide his discomfort by being upstaged by his 22-year-old teammate.
Simoni made one last stab at victory in Saturday’s climbing stage when he attacked with Garzelli over the Mortirolo. The two former Giro winners came through together, but it was Garzelli taking the stage victory. For Simoni, it was all about trying to reclaim his Giro crown.
“The stage win or second place in the Giro doesn’t matter to me,” Simoni said. “It was my only chance to try to win the Giro.”
Though team officials tried to play it down, the split within the Saeco team has been the major story in the Italian press.
“Cunego deserved to win this Giro,” Martinelli insisted. “He proved he was the strongest and the team supported him. For him to win is incredible. No one expected it.”
Following Cunego’s Saturday-morning press conference, Saeco riders and staff dressed in pink to pose for a picture – except Simoni, who refused to join the love fest. One newspaper reported Simoni would try to break his final year with Saeco to join another team, possibly Quick Step or his former team Lampre.
It's certain that the two men will not ride this year's Tour de France together, whether as teammates or as rivals – Cunego says he might not tackle that grand tour until 2006. As for Simoni, he refused to talk about the upcoming Tour. Part of his plan for the 2004 season was to come into the Giro fresher with the idea to be stronger in July.
“I don’t want to think about the Tour. I’ve been racing for 20 days, and all I want to do is go home and see my family,” Simoni said. “After that I’ll come up with some plan to conquer the world.”
‘Fast Freddy’ joins Giro club
Fred Rodriguez (Acqua & Sapone) pulled a major heist when he roared past Petacchi to win the ninth stage into Carovigno. It was only the fifth time an American had won a stage in the Giro; the last U.S. win came in 2002.
“It’s the biggest win of my career so far, especially with beating Petacchi. Hardly anyone’s beaten him in the past two years,” Rodriguez said. “I think after this, mentally, I am really looking forward to working on becoming a more explosive sprinter.”
With his stage win, Rodriguez joined an elite group: Ron Kiefel (1985, Perugia); Andy Hampsten (1985, Gran Paradiso; 1988, Selvino, Vetriolo (ITT), overall); Greg LeMond (1986, Cosenza); and Tyler Hamilton (2002, Numana (ITT).
Wegmann, Petacchi lead other jerseys
German youngster Fabian Wegmann (Gerolsteiner) was all smiles Sunday morning after the 22-year-old snatched back the green King of the Mountains jersey in Saturday’s stage. Wegmann had been attacking all week trying to secure the climber’s jersey, but Cunego seized it after winning atop Bormio 2000.
Wegmann’s only chase was to attack early on the feared Mortirolo.
“It was so hard, so steep, but there were thousands of people cheering and it gave me goose bumps,” Wegmann recounted. “Halfway up the climb I heard we had two minutes on the leaders and I really pushed it. When I took second in the climb, I thought that I would be able to win the jersey. It means a lot to me. It’s the biggest thing in my career so far.”
Unlike last year, when Petacchi was eliminated after finishing outside the time limit, the “Gentleman” sprinter made it over the mountains to win the Giro’s points jersey. Petacchi had collected a postwar-record eight stages going into Sunday’s finale in Milan, where he notched his ninth.
Rafaele Illiano (Colombia-Selle Italia) grabbed the blue Azzura jersey of the InterGiro competition after escaping in Saturday’s penultimate stage.
McGee satisfied
Brad McGee (FDJeux.com) finished eighth to match the second best result by an Aussie in the Italian tour (Michael Wilson was eighth in 1985 and Phil Anderson finished seventh in 1987) and became only the second Australian to wear the maglia rosa after winning the opening prologue (Cadel Evans was the first in 2002).
“I came to this Giro to get some form, but I felt strong after the first mountain stages and just played it stage-by-stage,” McGee said. “Everyone was just waiting for me to explode in the big mountains, but it never happened.”
McGee was penalized 20 seconds for allegedly holding onto a team car in stage 16, a charged he vehemently denied. The penalty cost him seventh place by 3 seconds to Wladimir Belli (Lampre).
Giro surprises
Mario Cipollini (Domina Vacanze) abandoned the first week after crashing hard in the sprint in stage four. The Lion King left the Giro winless for the first time of his career.
Pavel Tonkov (Vini Caldirola) won Stage 17, but his finish line gesture wouldn’t have cleared American censors. The 35-year-old Russian slapped his palm against his right arm in a gesture that in Italy can roughly be translated as “up yours.” “No one’s got any faith in me, everyone thought I was finished,” Tonkov explained. The race jury promptly fined him 200 Swiss francs.
Only four non-Italians won stages going into Milan’s finale, with McGee, Robbie McEwen, Serhiy Honchar and Rodriguez each taking one stage each.
Former mountain biker Dario Cioni (Fassa Bortolo) finished fourth overall despite helping Petacchi in the sprint stages. “I think I won the Giro for the gregarios,” said Cioni, whose mother is English. “I am a good worker, so this is a great satisfaction for me to make such a strong Giro in the general classification.”
To see how today's 149km stage from Clusone unfolded, with more pictures from Graham Watson, simply open our LIVE UPDATE window.
