As I laid in bed and clock was ticking over to 2am, I started to reflect on my highs, lows and funny moments of the Giro.
HIGH MOMENTS
Matt Goss and GreenEDGE: First grand tour win - It took exactly three stages for new cycling entity, Orica-GreenEDGE to win its first grand tour stage win thanks to the perfect ride by Matt Goss. Matt White told the media that the GreenEDGE squad was capable of winning stages at the Giro. I doubted the depth of the team and their ability to win a grand tour stage so early in the season. It was not the Tour Down Under or Tour of Turkey. But I was happy to be proven wrong. Goss was close in Stage 2, but huge crash just before the finish line during stage 3 guaranteed Goss' first victory. The news of the stage win had reached the shores of Australia as most main stream sports news programs picked up the win. It was not long until the fickle news mob dropped the story as success started to wane.
Goss may have won Stage 9, but for Pozzato forgetting where the brakes were and he ran straight in Goss.
Unfortunately, it seemed to go downhill for Orica-GreenEDGE after stage 9. As the roads climbed up to higher levels, so did the teams efforts. The team struggled to get into any breakaways. It was not a contender on my of the mountain stages. The team just seemed to struggle over three weeks. The team was constructed with a lack of general classification glory. And that showed over the three weeks.
Choice of wildcards - The choice of wildcards is always controversial for the race organiser. Do they promote the local teams? Do the support their own riders? Race director, Michele Acquarone, explained the selection of his wildcards in a fully transparent manner. http://www.cyclingnews.com/blogs/pink-admiral-michele-acquarone-blog/wildcards-how-we-made-our-decision
The organisers chose Farnese Vini-Selle Italia, Colnago-CSF Inox, Androni Giocattoli and German team, NetApp. Acqua e Sapone complained as it could not give Stefano Gazzelli the Giro send off that had hoped for.
But Acquarone can be vindicated in his selection of wildcards. With the exception of NetApp, the three other teams won stages, with Pozzivivo and Rabottini winning exciting stages. NetApp did secure a 2nd place, but with Farnese Vini-Selle Italia, managed to gets themselves into many breakaways and TV coverage for their sponsors.
Rabottini breakaway - Who will ever forget Rabottini's almost start to finish win during stage 15. Purito Rodriguez tried to secure victory in the last 400 metre, but somehow Rabottini, tired and weary, managed to get onto his black wheel and then pass him on the last corner. Amazing ride. A deserving victory. And one of the rides of the giro. Rabottini performances ensured that he was the winner of the mountains classification.
De Gendt win -The Queens Stage, Caldes/ Val di Sole to Passo dello Stelvio, resulted in a almost giro winning move for Thomas De Gendt (Vacansoleil-DCM). The day considered of 5 huge mountain passes. A day to separate the men from the boys. Six years of training for De Gendt paid off when his final attack on the Stelvio with 16kms of climbing still to go succeeded and he broke away from Cunego and Nieve. De Gendt managed to get to a 5 minute lead on the maglia rosa group, which would have placed him into second place if it finished that way. It did not, De Gendt narrowly missing out on a podium spot to finish in 4th overall on the GC.
LOW MOMENTS
Not that crash -What was Ferrari thinking? The less said about this incident the better. Thankfully it did not lead to the withdrawal for some the the big names that were involved in the accident.
Italian cycling - Italians have won the race 67 times in its history. So it was not surprising that Scaproni, Basso and Cunego came into the Giro as favourites to win. With the exception of Cunego, two of the hot favourites had no form, no big wins and nothing to suggest that they were going to win.
By 27 May 2012, there was no Italian winner. In fact, it was the first time since 1995 that there were no Italian riders on the podium after the final stage.
Italian riders still managed to win 6 stages, similar to the 2011 edition. However, three of those wins came from riders from the smaller Italian teams. In 2011, Liquigas-Cannondale dominated the podium with three stages. In 2012, they were a shadow of their best. Basso had them working overtime on the mountains, driving the peloton. They delivered Basso to positions where he could have won. But there was no spark. Basso was no capable of winning. His time had passed.
The Italian media expected big things of Pozzovivo, who won the Giro Del Trentino only weeks before. However, the little Italian climber seem to loose motivation once he won his first stage. He was absent when it came to the big climbs in the Dolomites.
Petacchi and Cipollini have dominated the giro sprints for a long time. Andrea Guardini has been crowned the next big sprinter by the Italian media. We were expecting him to perform. But it took 18 stages before he got his first victory, when he out sprinted Cavendish. There are positive signs. But much improvement yet.
There will be a lot of sole searching for the Italian teams. They were disappointing. Will they come out strong in 2013?
FUNNY MOMENTS
One of the highlights of the giro was a desperate press release by Farnese Selle Italia DS, trying to locate one of their bikes. Apparently a fan in his undies took off with Rabottini's bike after he was left holding the bike while Rabottini was given a spare bike. The mechanic pushed Rabottini off, jumped in the car and underpants man was left there standing with a top of the range MCipollini RS1000. You would have got a nice dime for that on Ebay.
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