Ok, I think we’ve returned to the point that a Petacchi Giro win is no longer an important story. Even if he has to go alone from 800m. Sorry, Peta, but you’re just a victim of your own success. Your teammake Erik gets props, though, for his first vic of the season, exactly a week after his doping confession. Note to the guys running the Danish sports hall of fame: when Zabel came away with the win, the crowds cheered. Neatly rounding off the string of poetically just non-Giro finishes today, Unibet’s Gorik Gardeyn won Stage 2 at the Tour of Belgium, over such ProTour luminaries as Disco’s Allan Davis, and Cofidis’ recently returned Tyler Farrar.
I suppose it wouldn’t be a cycling blog post if I didn’t talk about doping. So I guess I’ll toss out that all the big guns at the Giro got tested yesterday. Not sure why you’d wait until after the big stage, when they’ve all just gotten urine tests anyway, but I thought I’d mention it. Gibo’s ascent of Zoncolan also set some weird climbing speed record, so maybe CONI was concerned about that. Anyway, according to Robert Forster, the extra tests wouldn’t even be news in Germany, which to its credit, seems to be a nation leading the way in cleaning the sport. However, they still trail Norway, which recently thrashed Kurt-Asle Arvesen for putting child safety above anti-doping.