A madison race on the Italian Riviera Rimini, Wednesday 20th May, 2020 From our sports correspondent Andrea Costa artwork by Marcus Reed The 11th stage seemed like a done deal. An easy climb northward with a sprint finish. A day promising little drama as most of the 181 kilometres of racing would be on State 16, an A road running through a strip of land, bordered by sea and hills, so metropolitan in character it’s been called Adriatic City: a continuous repetition of houses, factories, shopping malls, beaches and harbours linking the historic coastal towns like a daisy chain. A landscape that might remind you of Romagna but for the ridges and valleys snaking down to the sandy coast. It...Continue Reading
De Gendt-Ciccone, breakaway in two in Abruzzo Tortoreto Lido, 19th May 2020 From our correspondent Antonio Ruzzo artwork by Lucio Schiavon «Tra le nuvole e il mare si può fare e rifare e con un po’ di fortuna si può dimenticare. E di nuovo la vita sembra fatta per te. E comincia domani…» Artisti per l’Abruzzo “Amidst the clouds and the sea you can try and try once more And with a bit of luck you can forget. And again life seems made for you. And tomorrow begins anew ….” “Artists for Abruzzo” Time ago those lines were composed for the people of...Continue Reading
Santini and the effects of a broken metatarsal Vasto, May 18th, 2020 from our correspondent Carlo Brena artwork by Pietro Corraini It is a clear sky the one that wakes up the riders of the Giro on the morning of the first of the two rest days of the SenzaGiro: the Adriatic Sea is a straight line on the horizon, motionless in front of the balconies of the hotels in Vasto. In the hotels’ car parks the teams’ temporary workshops are already working on the set-up of the “specialissime” (pro’s bikes): «All of them have to be ready for ten» says a mechanic from the Trek Segafredo team as he adjusts the seat of an Emonda, red as the most powerful...Continue Reading
Beauty is never predictable Vieste – May 17th, 202 from our correspondent Marco Ballestracci artwork by Marija Markovic Giovinazzo is a place that has always intrigued me, ever since the results of roller hockey were read in the “Domeniche Sportive” presented, as chance would have it, by Adriano De Zan. I knew all the cities of the championship. All but Giovinazzo, whose location was a mystery to me. It can so happen that a stage of the Giro d’Italia is also useful to solve old unanswered questions and to realise that having never visited Giovinazzo is a real shame, because there is so much there. On the other hand, and some might have forgotten it, we are in Puglia, and after...Continue Reading
Elia beats Iljo Brindisi, may 17th 2020 from our correspondent Aldo Ballerini illustrazione di Nadia Guidi It sets out from the Aragonese castle in Castrovillari, and arrives at the Roman columns of Brindisi. Sorry for the rest but this is Italy and this is the Giro. It starts with a descent, and after 200 flat kilometres it reaches Brindisi. We’re still only a third of the way round, but the previous stage was hard. Mileto to Camigliatello Silano, 223 kilometres with a long final climb of the Valico di Montescuro, was a test for climbers and sprinters alike. Today’s stage is therefore about recovery, and at times quite dull. And yet… And yet – it goes without saying – the...Continue Reading
Dario Cataldo: one that returns Camigliatello Silano – May 15th, 2020 from our correspondent Alessandra Giardini artwork by 2BROS Creative If you were to see the stage all the way round, from the finish line to the start, you could spot already all the signs. This morning Dario Cataldo was the first rider out of his team bus, he went to sign in by himself, he looked around, laid his bike and had a read of the newspaper enjoying a coffee, sitting in one of the small tables in the starting Village. He stared for quite a while the backlit cathedral of Mileto with that sort of intricate work on its top from which a glimpse of the sky is visible....Continue Reading
The clue to everything: Vincenzo like Wolfgang Villafranca Tirrena – May 14th, 2020 from our correspondent Emanuele Esaia illustrazione di Riccardo Guasco From Catania to Villafranca Tirrena: a transfer stage, after yesterday’s climb to Etna. The race will set off from the land of the black lava slopes, hard to the eyesight and to the touch, which occasionally serve as a slide for the lava flows, anticipated by some bangs warning the residents of the area. Often, they don’t make any damage, only smoke and ashes. One needs to know that Etna is a bad-tempered dude, who holds his breath for years and then blows up looking down on everybody, confident in its size: a heavyweight among the European volcanos....Continue Reading
Lava, ice creams and stars: Ciccone up on the volcano Piano Provenzana – May 13th, 2020 from our correspondent: Giacomo Pellizzari artwork by Tiziana Longo In the summer of 1950, the American writer Truman Capote rented a place at the feet of Etna, near Taormina. A photograph portrays him crouching on the steps of a house with chalk white walls. He wears a pair of leather sandals, an unbuttoned shirt and baggy trousers: three sizes larger than his. Truman Capote is 26 years old, yet he looks like a kid, the same way he will look at 60 years of age: the face of a child that is amazed by the world, don’t you dare wake him up. The vegetation and the...Continue Reading
Remco Evenepoel’s hunger Agrigento – 12 May, 2020 From our correspondent: Daniele D’Aquila Artwork by Osvaldo Casanova “CAAAAAAPTAIN!……TRINACRIA!!!…” That’s probably what the sailor must have screamed, when he spotted the island. Actually not so, but that’s how we like to imagine that landing went. Or rather, those landings: Phoenicians, Pelasgians, Minoans, Greeks, Carthaginians, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Swabians, French, Aragonese, Spanish, Austrians. Just Klingons and Meganoids are missing. So much so, that if you ask an indigenous old man about the “Invasion of Sicily”, he will reply: “quale, Voscienza?!” (“which one, Sir?!”). Ethnicities, languages, religions, gastronomies, cultures have been alternating for centuries, enriching this already prosperous land that should thrust the chest out for pride in its wonders and instead is more likely...Continue Reading
Wind on Lake Balaton Nagykanisza, 11th May 2020 From our sports correspondent: Guido Foddis artwork by Mauro Mazzara Il Giro says goodbye to Hungary with a 220-kilometre stage of boredom, won, at the last, by riders displaying both courage and imagination. David Formolo celebrates his first pink jersey. The “Grinder of Valpolicella” proving, like the famous Veronese wine, Amarone maturing in his cellar, to be aging better and better. Everyone is happy with the result, including Nibali, who finds a handful of his rivals further back than they were yesterday. As that joker Bruseghin always quips: “A valley stage is a Comanche stage”. The ambush, in fact, takes shape at lunchtime, in a village whose name has been so denuded of vowels...Continue Reading