Giro Stage 13
It was a tough day in the Dolomites for Ivan Basso, who gave up the maglia rosa to Discovery Channel’s Paolo Savoldelli in the Giro d’Italia. Despite the elastic seeming to snap on the day’s penultimate climb, Basso was able to recover enough to help the chase group pull back Lampre boys Simoni and Cunego. However, when Gibo attacked as the gradient increased to about 10 percent on the final climb, Basso didn’t have the acceleration to react. But Savoldelli certainly did. And by the end of the stage he’d taken over a minute out of Basso to be in pink for another tough mountain stage tomorrow.
In somewhat of a disgraceful move, the great Aussie sprinter Robbie McEwen, did not start the race today even though he wore the maglia ciclamina as the leader of the points competition. He deceided it was better to quit now and prepare for July’s Tour de France. Sprinters do this a lot. (Mario Cipollini, great sprinter that he was, never finished a Tour in his entire career.) They like to snatch up wins in the early stages and then retire before suffering up the very first climb. McEwen’s not as big of a baby as Cippo, but he could have at least started the race and then abandoned later on rather than simply not starting.
It’s a funny predicament that this puts a fan in. You route for your favorite sprinter and support them, but then sometimes they end up quitting. It’s a big let down. Who wants to route for a quitter? Tom Demerly, my bike guru and owner of Bikesport, was extremely offended when Alessandro Petacchi, the seeming heir apparent to Cippollini’s crown as best Italian sprinter, abandoned the 2003 version of the Tour de France after arriving at the base of the first mountain. His reaction is rather passionate. Read it here.
