Simoni self sunk?
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ByEurosport
Published 29/05/2005 at 10:47 GMT
With just Sunday's parade stage home to Milan, the 2005 Giro d'Italia -- barring accident or mishap -- has been won by Italian Paolo Savoldelli. But the race was also lost by Gilberto Simoni. The outspoken Lampre leader came oh-so-close but failed to ligh
Eurosport
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"For three weeks, we believed in the overall win," Lampre team boss Claudio Corti lamented in French sports daily L'Equipe. "We needed just 28 more seconds. What can I say? That's the way the ball bounces."
Simoni was the animator of Saturday's epic mountain stage to Sestriere, a 190-km ride that included the unprecedented -- and demented -- Finestre climb.
The Finestre was a time-machine ride back to the days of Coppi and Bartali, when races dabbled in unknown terrain, testing mountain grades that surpassed the limits of reason.
The ascent soared for 18 km. The first 10.6 km were politely paved, but the final 7.9 km -- pitched at and over 10 percent -- rattled over a narrow, rock-strewn track of hard-packed dirt and dust, zig-zagging leg-cutting switchbacks mobbed by legions of fans.
"I never want to ride that climb again," Simoni said after Saturday's stage.
The 33-year-old Lampre leader nonetheless dictated tactics on the Finestre, pummelling race leader Savoldelli off the back and into oxygen debt before cracking himself on the final climb to the finish at Sestriere.
If Simoni had succeeded in staying with Saturday's stage winner Jose Rujano, the Italian very well could have been catapulted into the pink jersey.
Instead, a sapped Simoni rolled home 26 seconds behind the Venezuelan super climber, denied the stage win -- and the overall race title by just 28 seconds as a calculating Paolo Savoldelli limited his loses to salvage one of the closest-called Giro's in history.
Regardless of the do-or-die weight of Saturday's race, Simoni refused to single out the stage as the moment that sounded his pink-jersey death knell.
"There was no single day that cost me the race," the 2001 and 2003 Giro winner told L'Equipe.
"I let it go little by little throughout the race. I never really had a bad day, but I didn't have a superior day either. I didn't get a day when I felt invincible. I wasn't able to ride in a state of grace and therefore I couldn't isolate Savoldelli."
"We never got to do real battle. We never got to go mano-a-mano."
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