This is one of those days that they will be talking about for years to come.

Sure, the 18th stage of the Giro d'Italia had many of the elements in place before the start: the mountains, among them the Cima Coppi, marking the Giro's highest spot; the weather, with touches of wet snow marking the highest climbs and a contest that, despite the apparent dominance of a single rider, could still be altered on the 174 mountainous kilometers between Santuario DiVicoforte and Valle Varaita. But when you take the human element and throw it into the mix, well... suddenly you see why Thursday at the Giro won’t soon be forgotten.

Giro: One for the books

Of course for Fassa Bortolo's Dario Frigo, it was a day he'll remember as the one in which he finally rediscovered that fine form he had been showing all spring. The form that seemed to disappear right after the start of the Giro.

For Saeco's Gilberto Simoni, this was the day he put an end to any doubts about who might be wearing the maglia rosa into Milan on Sunday. Instead, Thursday left us with a new and very tight contest for second place, now between a former Giro winner and a 23-year-old upstart, who may himself become the man to beat in coming years.

Pantani recovered and finished.

Photo: Graham Watson

Thursday was also a day when we saw a courageous ride from Marco Pantani, mustering his strength and courage just so he could manage to finish after crashing painfully with Stefano Garzelli on the final descent. We saw, too, one of the most severe time cuts ever imposed on a major tour, eliminating 35 riders in one fell swoop, leaving just 97 to contest the remainder of this Giro. Finally, some of this Giro’s top competitors may have learned a simple lesson about equipment choice and how the lightest, hi-tech options aren’t always the best way to go.

Early attacks
The race was fast from the start, averaging almost 48kph for the first 60km. Driving the speed were several early attacks and the ensuing chases from the peloton. Finally at 22km, a group of 24 managed to hold a gap.

Gonzalez and Lanfranchi lead the escapees up Montemale di Cueno

Photo: Graham Watson

Soon six others managed to bridge at 36km and we suddenly had a 30-man break speeding toward the day’s first climb. The group worked hard to extend its lead and by the base of the Category III Montemale di Cuneo, they were nearly 6:00 ahead of the field. Though just a Cat. III climb, the slopes of the Montemale di Cuneo took their toll. By the summit, the lead group had been whittled to nine with 16 of the original break in pursuit. The main group was seven minutes down, and the gap expanded to almost eight minutes by the base of the huge Colle d'Esischie, the highest point the riders will reach in this year's Giro at 2366m. The KOM at the high point of the Giro each year is called the Cima Coppi (Coppi's Summit), named for the great Italian Fausto Coppi, champion of the 1940s and 1950s. At the summit, Giro KOM jersey Fredy Gonzalez led a group of 13 over the top, and behind, Garzelli played his one and only card of the day.

Four kilometers from the summit, Garzelli took his best shot and tried an attack. Simoni almost effortlessly responded and flew past the winner of the 2000 Giro. From then on it was clear which of the two was in command.

With the help of two teammates, Garzelli barely managed to claw his way back to Simoni by the summit. The day went downhill from then on for the second-placed Vini Caldirola rider.

Pantani, too, was struggling again, obviously not part of his plan, since he had his Mercatone Uno-Scanavino team working hard at the base of the Esischie. The ex-Pirate fell off the back on the climb and was a minute down over the summit, but, taking many risks on the wet roads, he managed to catch the Simoni group on the descent.

Behind them, Francesco Casagrande – the man who had started the day in sixth place – found he could not go on and abandoned the Giro at kilometer 94, six kilometers shy of the summit.

A decisive descent
The climb and descent of the Colle di Sampeyre are fearsome on a sunny day, but in the snow and rain, the possibilities for taking a dive off the edge are enormous. The entire climb and the first half of the Sampeyre descent are only slightly wider than a car. When it was built, the road was simply hacked into a cliff face, leaving a roof hanging over the road.

On the Colle di Sampeyre

Photo: Graham Watson

Traveling the road gives one the sensation that it somehow hangs out over the edge. Its short bridges over breathtaking drops alternate with equally short, low, narrow and dark tunnels. And that’s just the climb.

The Sampeyre descent is just barely a paved road at the top. The pavement is new in places, as it always is for the Giro, but even in the “upgraded” sections it’s just a narrow strip of asphalt with big drops below. Having already crested the Colle d'Esischie a fractured peloton hit the slopes of the even more challenging Sampeyre in a pouring rain. By the summit, the road was covered in wet snow.

Keeping the bike on the road in dry conditions would be tough. Doing so on wet roads while trying to fight off cold and exhaustion begged for problems.

At the base of the Colle di Sampeyre at km 123, Gonzalez and four others held a 4:35 lead over the Simoni group, with small bunches of the initial breakaways scattered in between. Seven kilometers later, with 10km left to climb, Simoni's group had closed to within 2:35.

It was time for Simoni to make his move.

Five kilometers from the summit, the Saeco man attacked. Garzelli couldn’t respond. Indeed only Alessio's Franco Pellizotti and Fassa Bortolo's Frigo managed to stay with the man in pink.

Under relentless pressure from Simoni, all of the day’s early escapees were caught and summarily dropped. Then, too, went Pellizotti. Simoni and Frigo were on their own.

A surprisingly strong Georg Totschnig (Gerolsteiner) made his bid and took off in hot pursuit of the two leaders under the cold rain, hail and snow. Then, after biding his time, third-placed 23-year-old Yaroslav Popovych (who began the day 2:07 out of second place) also attacked out of the Garzelli group. Both men managed to join Simoni and Frigo by the summit.

At the summit, the situation didn’t look too bad for Garzelli, Pantani, Lampre's Raimondas Rumsas and a few others. They trailed the leaders by a mere 43 seconds at the top.

On the narrow, snowy road with so much at stake, few riders were willing or able to take the risks required to get their jackets on, and most just dropped them again without donning them. Frigo managed to get a small piece of newspaper stuffed under his jersey and started attacking the descent. Simoni, with everything to lose and little to gain, was descending conservatively with Totschnig, while Popovych let out all of the stops on the descent.

Both Frigo and Simoni excel in cold, wet mountainous races - the former had demonstrated it racing in Spain this spring, and the latter, while wearing the pink jersey in 2001, won the Giro's final mountain stage with 40km solo ride up and down the Mottarone above Lago Maggiore. But the young Ukrainian from Landbouwkrediet-Colnago was not going to let the opportunity slip away for winning the stage win and perhaps knocking Garzelli out of second overall, and he was putting time into both of the wet-race specialists.

Meanwhile, Pantani and Garzelli knew that the day – and the Giro – were moving off down the road ahead of them. Pantani put aside any fears and was handling himself with skill on the narrow, wet descent. Garzelli, too, was holding his own and matching Pantani when he suddenly felt his bike slip out from under him.

Garzelli hit the pavement and took Pantani down with him; fortunately it was in a place with grass on both sides and not a cliff, but Pantani was badly hurt. Garzelli ran back to his bike and took off again with teammate Eddy Mazzoleni, but Pantani stayed sitting on the grass wrapped in a towel and a grimace for some time. Indeed, the way he held his arm after the crash led Italian commentators to speculate that he had broken a collarbone and announced that he was probably pulling out of the race. But Pantani has a lot to prove this season and the 1998 Giro and Tour de France winner eventually got up and continued on his way.

He struggled, but he finished... nearly 16 minutes behind Frigo, still good enough for 23rd place.

The final climb
At the base of the final climb to the finish at Chianale, Popovych led Frigo by 10 seconds and Simoni and Totschnig by 22 seconds. However, in his eagerness to get up the road, the Ukrainian had not taken the time to refuel himself like Simoni had. Popovych continued to ride strongly for awhile, dropping Frigo after he had bridged up, and Simoni left Totschnig and came up to Frigo.

"I had the choice of going with Popovych or waiting for Simoni, and I decided to wait,” Frigo said later. “I knew this was Simoni's kind of climb and that he would catch Popovych, so I caught my breath for awhile and then rode with him."

Indeed, the pair worked together and caught Popovych, who started taking pulls with them as well. However, the young Ukrainian suddenly ran out of gas and had to get a feed from his team car to avoid bonking altogether.

Simoni and Frigo both kept the pedal to the metal, with Frigo taking the sprint granted him by the pink jersey.

"I really felt fresh this morning," the Fassa Bortolo rider said, "and I thought I could have a good ride. This was a great victory for me."

Popovych was caught and passed by Totschnig but held on for fourth place, three minutes down on Simoni and a half-minute down on Totschnig. Then he had to wait to see if he had moved into second place. Garzelli came in at 5:08, saving his second place by a scant 11 seconds.

"It's so unfortunate that I crashed on the descent when I was trying to catch back on with Pantani,” Garzelli said. “Perhaps I forced it a bit too much. My front wheel slid out, and I took Marco down. I am very sorry, and I hope he is not badly hurt. Getting going again was hard because I had hit hard and my bike was a screwed up. I clenched my teeth and finished, but I didn't think I would keep my second place. Now I hope to recover and defend it."

Both Garzelli and his team manager, Mauro Gianetti opined that he probably would have caught back up without the crash. Gianetti added, "Stefano probably would have contended for the stage win."

Two of Simoni's Saeco teammates, Alessandro Spezialetti and Marius Sabaliauskas, were among the 30-man early breakaway, allowing Simoni to ride a tactical and energy-saving race. He resisted the impulse to attack again at the end of the stage, knowing that denying a stage win to man who was not in contention for the overall would have appeared greedy.

"I had the will to do it,” Simoni said, “but I didn't think it would have been opportune." Simoni leads Garzelli 7:08 and Popovych by 7:18, an insurmountable lead barring a disaster.

A much, much smaller field
There were many casualties of this brutal stage. In addition to Casagrande, who pulled out with gastrointestinal problems, Julio Perez-Cuapio (Panaria-Fiordo), Kurt-Asle Arvesen (Fakta-Pata), Ronny Scholz (Gerolsteiner), Martin Hvastija (Tenax) and Biagio Conte (Pinzolo) also climbed off their bikes in defeat.

There were also many who finished who still won't be able to continue on Friday. The 11-percent time cut for the stage translated to 36 minutes, as the winning time was 5:23:42.

The race jury did permit a group of eight that finished at 36:40 to continue, but everyone finishing after that (98th place and beyond) have been eliminated. The day began with 138 riders at the start and now there are 97.

Among the casualties was the day’s last-place finisher, Alessandro Petacchi, coming in at 50:45 with Fassa Bortolo teammate and former mountain-bike pro Dario Cioni.

Had he survived the day, Petacchi would have been aiming for his seventh stage win, which would have tied the post-war single Giro stage win record held by Freddy Maertens, Giuseppe Saronni and Roger De Vlaeminck. The absolute record of 12 (out of just 15 stages) was set by Alfredo Binda in 1927. That one is pretty much unassailable.

Tech notes:
Interestingly, the three riders in front after the descent all had normal aluminum rims (Simoni on a Mavic Helium front/Ksyrium SSC SL rear, Frigo on Ksyriums, and Popovych on Ambrosio rims laced to Campagnolo hubs). On the big mountain stages, many riders are using carbon rims, which are notoriously trickier to brake, particularly in wet and gritty conditions. Whether it contributed or not, both crash victims Garzelli and Pantani had all-carbon lightweight wheels - deep carbon rims, carbon hubs, and carbon/Kevlar spokes.

To see how this tough 174km stage unfolded just follow this link to pull up our live update window.