July 19, 2007

Legendary victory for Ricco at the Giro

A fantastic duo: Riccò and Piepoli tame the mountain monsters in an unforgettable race

What a show by SAUNIER DUVAL-PRODIR´s red birds in the queen stage of the 90th Giro d´Italia! Riccò and Piepoli crossed the mountaintop finish line at Tre Cime di Lavaredo almost together, after having ridden for 184 kilometres and climbed three other mountains. Making things hard for "Maglia Rosa" Danilo di Luca, the red birds launched an old-style attack halfway through the San Pellegrino. They could only be followed by Iván Parra (Cofidis) and Julio Pérez Cuapio (Ceramica Panaria-Navigare), and the four of them made an indestructible quartet, reaching the bunch of breakaways who dreamt of making the headlines of the day on the Giau. This bunch included SAUNIER DUVAL-PRODIR´s David Cañada, whose impeccable pace-setting job helped his winning teammates a lot. The leading quartet held on to their time advantage, being in the breakaway for 90 kilometres, until they reached Tre Cime di Lavaredo and began putting on a never-ending series of attacks and counter-attacks. With 350 metres to go, Piepoli and Riccò upped the pace to beat Parra, the only remaining survivor, and made it an unforgettable one-two for SAUNIER DUVAL-PRODIR. Two generations united by a yellow outfit: the ambitious youngster and the generous, experienced man.

Today, Riccò (23 years of age) has added his name to the list of those gifted riders who have been the youngest men to conquer a stage of the Giro - and probably the toughest one, for that matter. The stage win moved him up to 6th place in the GC, and closer to his pre-Giro objective, the young riders´ "Maglia Bianca." He is now only 43 seconds behind leader Andy Schleck (Team CSC). As for Piepoli (35), who came in 2nd, he had worn the "Maglia Verde" of Best Climber all day, but it had been on loan from Di Luca. Now the red bird has put affairs in order by moving into the lead with 19 points, thus becoming the strongest candidate to wear the King of the Mountains green jersey on the final podium in Milan. Gilberto Simoni couldn´t mount an offensive on Di Luca in today´s stage, losing 37 seconds to the overall leader but moving up one place up in the GC (at 3´19"). On top of earning their 16th victory this season (last year, they only got 15 all season), SAUNIER DUVAL-PRODIR is now leading the Trofeo Fast Team Classification, wiping away the 23 minutes separating them from the leading team (Lampre-Fondital) at the beginning of the stage. Tomorrow is rest day two; afterwards, other tough stages and more mountain monsters are coming, including the fearsome Monte Zoncolan, known as one of the most difficult ascents in Europe, in stage 17 on Wednesday.