Stephen Roche Survives ‘Civil War’ to Win the Tour and Giro (1987–91)
Some races take on an importance and mythology out of all proportion to what actually happened and many would argue that the 1987 Giro falls into that category. Riders within the same team clashing as they ruthlessly pursue personal ambition and glory is almost a cliché within cycling. Yet there remains something undeniably special about Stephen Roche’s victory in 1987 when at times he was not only taking on his leader Roberto Visentini but also the majority of his own Carrera team, their sponsors and tens of thousands of fans on the roadside. It’s a deliciously nuanced story, one very evocative of the Wild West days of the Giro, and can be viewed as both an act of betrayal and a career-defining moment when a competitor refused to be artificially constrained. The events of May and June 1987 also quickly took on a greater significance retrospectively in that Roche’s victory in the Giro was the first leg of a stunning season that also saw him emulate Eddy Merckx in winning the Giro/Tour double and the World Championship. At the time of writing they are the only two cyclists to achieve this.
The first thing to state, categorically, is that Roche never saw himself as anything other than a joint team leader with Visentini and therein lies the nub of the entire story. At the end of the 1985 season Roche was signed by Carrera’s DS Davide Boifava specifically to win big races and that included Grand Tours. Roche had always shown potential as a road racer and already had a Paris–Nice victory and two Tours of Romandie titles on his palmares in 1985 when he finished third in the Tour de France, an outstanding performance that definitely hinted at even greater glories. The dapper Irishman was on a steep upward trajectory and Carrera were determined to get their man, eventually signing him on the eve of the 1985 World Championship. In an ideal world Roche would probably race the Tour and the World Championships – he was already a bronze-medal winner from 1983 – while Visentini contested his beloved Giro, invariably his only major target of the season. But make no mistake, Roche was already a big-name rider, well capable of leading a team, when he moved to Italy. He was never a foot soldier and was not being paid one of the biggest basic salaries in cycling to ride as a gregario or even a gregario di lusso.
In that first winter the move went spectacularly pear-shaped after Roche crashed heavily at the Paris Six Days and damaged a knee cartilage, an injury that was to plague him on and off for the rest of his career. It was only diagnosed a couple of months later and, although Roche underwent an operation, the surgery wasn’t entirely successful. Short of fitness and form and still in discomfort, Roche struggled through his debut season with Carrera, nobly trying to contribute to the team effort in the Giro before being forced to withdraw a couple of days before the finish. Unable to climb with any intensity he also struggled around the Tour de France in 48th position, a remarkable performance given his condition. Visentini’s triumph at the 1986 Giro, at the eighth attempt, was seen by many, not least Visentini himself, as underlining his pre-eminence in the team but others saw it as a one-off triumph, a career peak that would never be repeated. Roche, meanwhile, never viewed himself as anything other than a potential Grand Tour winner. He had been at barely 50 per cent in 1986, but as soon as he got the knee fixed properly he would be competitive again. No question. That winter Roche underwent another knee operation which, temporarily at least, seem to solve the cartilage issue. Certainly he didn’t have to contend with swelling after every day’s racing, as he had throughout most of 1986. Fortified by a much better winter of training, Roche started afresh for Carrera in 1987 and immediately hit his straps, with wins at the Tour of Valencia and Tour of Romandie and a second place at Liège–Bastogne–Liège where he rode powerfully all day, only to be caught napping on the line by Moreno Argentin.
Roche was named in the Carrera squad for the 1987 Giro and it was that decision by the management that is fundamental to what followed. Did they assume he was riding simply to get fit for the Tour or were the team tactics even discussed in any detail? Or perhaps it was deliberately left a little open-ended. A little dynamic tension can be a wonderful thing but it can also get very ugly. From the outside looking in there was a widespread assumption that his efforts would be directed in the defence of Visentini’s title but again Roche begged to differ. He now considered himself well and truly back to the fitness and condition that saw him claim that third place in the 1985 Tour de France, a performance that in athletic terms could probably be considered at least the equal of, if not better than, Visentini’s win over a far from epic Giro course in 1986. Roche was in sparkling early season form in 1987, while Visentini had made his usual slow start. But he was the reigning champion and an Italian riding in an Italian team in his home Tour.
The cat was immediately set among the pigeons when Roche defeated Visentini in a curious quick-fire eight-kilometre time trial that was advertised as a descent from the well-known Poggio climb, which always takes centre stage in Milan–San Remo – but in fact featured equal measures of flat and uphill riding as well as fast downhill sections. The Carerra team, and indeed the vast majority of the peloton, opted for their aerodynamic TT bikes with solid wheels but Roche felt his normal road bike was better suited to such a varied test of man and machine. Roche’s subsequent surprise stage win – Visentini was the strong favourite for the stage – might only have been by 7 seconds but it had a massive knock-on effect. Two days later the strong Carrera line-up dominated a 43km TTT and that win projected Roche into the maglia rosa, 15 seconds ahead of Visentini.
For the next ten days Roche wore the leader’s jersey which established the legitimacy of his challenge for the GC in his own eyes if not in those of his team. The internal tension was palpable though. Tellingly, Visentini shadowed his team-mate rather than opposition riders and most experienced observers could sense trouble brewing. The vast majority of the Carrera team were solidly behind Visentini but one rider at least – Belgium’s Eddy Schepers – was firmly in the Roche camp. Schepers had loyally ridden for both Visentini and Roche the previous season but when the team hinted strongly that they would not be keeping Schepers on for the 1987 season only Roche argued the case for his gregario. Carrera relented and Schepers was a devoted Roche man thereafter.
Schepers was also a very fine and practical racer. On a very quiet short stage – stage six from Terni to Terminillo – Schepers and Jean-Claude Bagot were allowed to slip away on a break that could have no possible influence on the eventual GC rankings. Bagot, of the Fagor team, was a very decent climber but couldn’t shake Schepers off over the three minor climbs that presented themselves and, come the final run-in, Schepers, who possessed a punchy finish, was the clear favourite to win. At which point Schepers started negotiating on behalf of his master. If they agreed that the stage was Bagot’s could Roche rely on a little support from Bagot and his Fagor colleagues in the high mountains if Roche found himself isolated? The deal was done and after Schepers led the finish out for the sake of appearances, Bagot came past to take line honours.
Roche’s fortunes nosedived on stage 13 when he suffered a very bad day at the office in the Rimini–San Marino TT. Visentini, always good and sometimes exceptional in time trials, was rightly favourite for the stage and duly won in impressive style but Roche was very poor by his own standards, finishing 2.47 back in 12th position. The reigning champion now led by 2.47. Roche has always insisted that his poor ride was down to Visentini distracting him on the day of the TT accompanying him on his practice ride, constantly quizzing him over which gear to use where and when on the course, and pestering him with more questions as he tried to get his head together over a light lunch. That might be true but a top rider is totally responsible for his own routines and preparations. Blaming his poor TT ride on Visentini doesn’t really wash as a valid explanation. What is interesting, though, is his reaction to his team’s excessive joy in seeing Visentini back in the lead. Roche, having worn the jersey for the team for ten days, was disappointed but not surprised. He knew which way the wind was blowing.
Roche still had the support of his room-mate Schepers, however, and that evening they studied the route book long and hard. How could they get back at Visentini without being seen to overtly attack the team’s pink jersey? It wouldn’t be easy. Eventually they drew a ring around Sappada, two days later on stage 15, a mixed day starting with 100km of flattish terrain and ending with three lumpy hills finishing with the Cima Sappada, topping out at just under 1,300m. It was basically a leg-stretching exercise before the Dolomites and most of the peloton would be hoping for a relatively uneventful day. It was, however, exactly the sort of stage when a relatively harmless break might go up the road.
Just such an opportunity presented itself as the peloton went over the first climb – Forcella di Monte Rest – when Bagot and Ennio Salvador attacked. Roche used the supposed need to cover that move – there was in fact no need whatsoever, the duo were not factors in the GC – as a fairly flimsy excuse to launch his own attack. What was clever is that he launched his bid to bridge the gap on the descent where, to use his own vivid phrase, ‘I cut the brake cables.’ Attacking on a climb is blatant and there for all to see but sometimes, going downhill, you can just have one of those magic-carpet days when you are in synch with the descent and can pull ahead without touching a pedal, without obviously forcing the pace and animating the race. That’s what Roche did and he soon bridged the gap to Bagot and Salvador, but now what to do? Roche was having fun, the devil was in him for sure, but he also assumed the Bianchi and Panasonic teams would be organising the chase and he was on borrowed time. In fact, a furious Visentini had put the Carrera team to the front of the bunch to chase Roche down and everybody else was being towed along. When Roche received this news from his perplexed DS Boifava who had driven up to Roche to order him back, it was like a red rag to a bull: ‘I was riding eyeballs out so pumped up with anger by the fact that my team were “riding” behind me that I didn’t feel any fatigue at all. Rage drove me on for almost 40km.’
This was war. Civil war. Roche was almost caught at the foot of the second climb but as the bunch came back together another break went off, including Schepers, and Roche just about managed to tag on. Carrera, meanwhile, had buried themselves over those 40 flat kilometres chasing their erstwhile colleague and nobody had anything in reserve. At one point Biofava drove up and ordered Schepers back to help the struggling Visentini but the experienced and brave Schepers declined, arguing that the best and logical tactics now were to ride for Stephen Roche. Johan van der Velde took the stage and Roche came home in an 11-man group 46 seconds behind, while a broken Visentini limped home in 58th position at 6.50. The team ‘leader’ did not have a single gregario by his side such had been the damage of a dramatic day. Afterwards it was chaos and the media went into meltdown. Italy’s reigning champion and the pink jersey, who started the day nearly 3 minutes to the good, had been ridden ragged and humiliated by his own Carrera team-mate. As Roche was accepting the jersey a fuming Visentini was doing a TV interview alongside the makeshift podium with Italy’s RAI. ‘Tonight somebody is going home,’ he fumed ominously.
Roche didn’t go home. The fact that he had regained the maglia rosa and Carrera could still win the Giro ensured that; it was his get-out-of-gaol-free card. All the time he was in pink how could anybody seriously argue against him? The next week, however, was to be the most uncomfortable of his career. The gloves were well and truly off as he later recalled:
From that point onwards Visentini didn’t talk to me at all. And he kept on attacking me, the day after Sappada, the next day and the next day. It was mayhem on the road that first day back in pink. Everybody wanted my blood. I would never in my wildest dreams have imagined it was going to be as difficult as it was with the fans. They had been whipped up into a frenzy because there was all this stuff in the press about me being a traitor, cheating on my team-mate. People were waving banners daubed with pictures of raw meat dripping blood and saying Roche Bastardo, Roche va a casa – but seeing that hardened my determination. On the climbs fans were shouting all kind of abuse and trying to punch me. Some had rice in their mouths and then, as I approached, they were taking a mouthful of red wine and spitting it all over me.
The very next stage was a classic Dolomites day – Croce Comelico, Gardena, Sella, Pordoi, Marmolada – and not at all pleasant for Roche as he ran the gauntlet of the fans. For most of the time he rode with the ever-loyal Schepers on one side and a good friend and former Renault colleague Robert Millar on the other. Millar, an English-speaking ally in a very foreign peloton, had also served the same cycling apprenticeship at the ACBB amateur club in Paris as Roche and was always an individual who would make up his own mind on any given issue and react accordingly. As a GC contender himself, riding with the maglia rosa was an obvious tactic for the day in any case. A couple of Fagor riders also rode with Roche to form a protective bubble as they worked off the team’s debt to Schepers for allowing Bagot the stage win much earlier in the race. And it wasn’t only the enraged fans that Roche had to be wary of.
Visentini did everything he could to get clear that day and that wasn’t all he was up to. As we were coming over the top of one of the big climbs Eddy [Schepers] and I had fallen back a bit and Roberto [Visentini] dropped back towards us. I thought for a moment that he was coming back to help. But when we reached him he kind of swerved. We didn’t know why but we managed to avoid him. Then he veered again as if to force me off the cliff. I avoided him again but he almost put Eddy over the cliff. I rode alongside him and put my hands on his bars and made it clear that if he tried that again he would be coming over the edge with me.
In the end it began to calm down a little although Roche spent the rest of the Giro eating meals in his room at night with the food prepared by his masseur Silvano Davo to avoid the possibility of some outside agent – or team-mate – trying to poison the leader. His personal mechanic Patrick also ensured that Roche’s bike didn’t leave his sight during the night. Roche kept cool and closed out the most controversial Giro in modern-day history with an emphatic win in the final TT, Visentini having gone home the previous night after breaking a wrist in a fall on the penultimate stage. A loquacious Irishman, Roche also seemed to win the PR battle. At one stage, when quizzed by Gazzetta about the situation and Visentini’s complaints of treachery he replied: ‘Roberto fell off in the Tour of the Basque country and hit his head. He sometimes gets hold of the wrong end of the stick.’
Roche had worn the pink jersey for 18 days during the race and finished 3.40 ahead of Robert Millar. By any criteria he was the strongest rider in the 1987 Giro and a worthy winner but still the controversy rages. Afterwards he and Schepers didn’t hang around but drove to Paris through the night with two friends who had come down for the final stage. After a quick celebratory glass of champagne and a croissant they went on a training ride. The Tour de France awaited.
Andy Hampsten becomes the first North American to win a Grand Tour
After the dramas of 1987 the tantalising prospect of a rematch loomed the following spring but Roche, having moved to the Fagor MBK team, suffered a recurrence of his knee problems and never made it to the start line, while Visentini was never really a factor, finishing a dispirited 13th. Given the failure of a much-anticipated rematch to materialise, 1988 could have been a massive anticlimax but in this golden mini-period for the Giro another compelling story developed, namely the emergence of the American team 7-Eleven and ultimately the dramatic victory of Andy Hampsten who became the second North American to win a Grand Tour and first to win the Giro.
The genesis of 7-Eleven away from the European mainstream was a remarkable story in itself, the brainchild of Jim Ochowicz, a former Olympic team pursuit rider who was also a huge ice-skating fan. His wife was Olympic ice-skating gold medallist Sheila Young and the couple were firm friends with Olympic ice-skating legend Eric Heiden who had won five Olympic gold medals at the 1980 Games at Lake Placid. Heiden was in turn a massive cycling fan who spent hours on his bike for training and had always been intrigued by the possibility of switching to cycling. After Lake Placid they got together to form a cycling team to race in North America with the presence of Heiden helping to secure a strong sponsorship with 7-Eleven. The team, based on North American and Mexican riders, proved very successful domestically and in 1985 tried its luck in Europe, competing in that year’s Giro when Ron Kiefel and Hampsten both made an immediate splash with stage wins. The following year Hampsten, riding that season for La Vie Claire, won the Tour of Switzerland and the Young riders jersey when finishing fourth at the Tour de France, while the 7-Eleven team claimed three stage winners at the Tour in Davis Phinney, Jeff Pierce and Dag Otto Lauritzen.
Hampsten was back on board with 7-Eleven at the 1988 Giro, which had plenty of scope for climbers, with the consensus being that the short but downright nasty 120km stage from Chiesa in Valmalenco to Bormio, taking in the Aprica and Gavia, would be a major battleground. And as is often the case with the Gavia, the high-speed and at times dangerous descent into Bormio was likely to be as big a factor as the ascent itself. All this was widely anticipated before the peloton pulled into Chiesa in Valmalenco on the night of Saturday 4 June. After what had been a sun-kissed Giro up to that point, the weather suddenly turned very nasty overnight and by Sunday morning sleet and icy rain was falling at the start which was situated at about 600m. You didn’t need to be a meteorologist to guess what conditions would be like 2,000m higher up the mountain. There were discontented rumbles from some teams but the race organisation, always a law unto itself, appeared unconcerned on this occasion despite the conditions which, even at the start, appeared to be infinitely worse than anything experienced on the Stelvio four years earlier when that climb had been inexplicably cut from the stage.
What transpired was remarkable and, although it’s difficult to compare epic bad weather in the Giro, it is doubtful if the peloton have ever been asked to race in worse conditions, certainly in modern times. The 7-Eleven team, despite accusations of being a bit wet behind the ears in terms of European racing and general Grand Tour experience, were among the least concerned by the worsening weather reports. Most of the team were based in the high mountains in Boulder, Colorado, where extreme winter weather was a fact of life. Hampsten was their main GC hope and riding well, handily placed in fifth, and he was particularly at home in such conditions. He, too, was based in Boulder but had also been brought up in North Dakota which specialises in huge winter snows and freezing, almost Arctic conditions. The Giro was his big target for the year and, slight of build, he had decided to try and toughen up and improve his strength and endurance during the winter. For weeks at a time, at the urging of the 7-Eleven coach, Mike Neel, he had climbed off his bike and had gone for gruelling eight-hour hikes in the Rockies in the depths of winter. It was as much a mental toughening-up exercise as anything and on the Gavia that day it paid off handsomely. 7-Eleven were well organised and had been plotting long-range satellite weather forecasts for a week ahead, and had spotted the possibility of extreme weather on the Gavia ahead of many teams. Three days before the stage Ochowicz had gone into a sports shop en route and bought every pair of ski gloves and thermal vests they had along with a dozen thermos flasks.
On the day itself Ochowicz rose before dawn, filled the thermoses with scalding hot sweet tea and filled the team musettes with piles of substantial sustaining food rather than light energy bars and gels. He then drove behind a snowplough to the top of the Gavia to await the arrival of the peloton. This was a day on which simply surviving would ensure a good finish. On the climb up, a relay of 7-Eleven domestiques brought hot tea up to Hampsten every five minutes or so to ward off hypothermia for their lead man who was tapping away quite nicely in his natural element. It might have been cold but he had known much worse on the almost tundra-like conditions of a wintry North Dakota. And the worst bit of the day was going to be the descent. He was saving his physical and emotional energy for that. First to crest the summit was the excellent Dutch climber Johan van der Velde and, although strictly speaking he was the opposition, Ochowicz relented and poured a steaming hot mug of tea from a 7-Eleven thermos and stuck it in his hand. Van der Velde was frozen like a statue, such was his physical condition, and lost nearly 1 hour of time on the descent.
Hampsten chugged into view just over 1 minute behind, going remarkably well. Already wearing a woollen ski hat and neck warmer, he also added a jacket to try and offer some protection against the wind and cold as the race headed downhill. Staying upright was the only thing that really mattered on the descent. There were virtually no spectators, and the team cars, at this point, were struggling miles behind. In the swirling mists and spindrift, you could have gone off over the side and nobody would have noticed. Hampsten also recognised that another big danger was getting your gear set and sprockets encased with frozen snow and ice, rendering them unusable. The worst possible thing you could do was freewheel as you usually would on sections of such a long descent: ‘I knew I had to keep one gear working,’ Hampsten recalled. ‘I kept it in the 53x14 and pedalled the whole way down. I never stopped pedalling so it never stopped working.’
Hampsten kept rolling steadily along and eventually finished second behind Dutchman Erik Breukink who had produced an equally heroic and resourceful ride. The American was now in pink but shortly after the finish the pent-up emotions and tension of the hardest and most testing day he had ever spent on a bike hit Hampsten like a ton of bricks. First he became very angry and started shouting at everybody, then he climbed into a car with a heater on and asked to be left alone while he cried his eyes out. The stragglers were still a long way off, making their way down the slopes, and there were press reports of many riders, not caring whether they were disqualified or not, simply climbing into their team cars when they finally came into view and driving most of the way before remounting their bikes with a few kilometres to go. In the event there were no disqualifications.
Recovering from such a day was 7-Eleven’s biggest task because they now had a pink jersey to defend, but recover they did and after riding defensively through the rest of the mountains Hampsten applied the coup de grâce on the stage 18 time trial, an 18km uphill run from Levico Terme to Valico del Vetriolo. The resilient American won that in convincing style to give himself the best part of a 2-minute lead over Breukink, which he sustained without alarm all the way to the finish. It was a career highlight for Hampsten who enjoyed some more fine days back at the Giro, not least a third place the following year, but he was never quite able to match what he achieved in 1988. And perhaps it’s no wonder. On that day on the Gavia he and others pushed their bodies to the limit and beyond.
Nineteen eighty-nine was Laurent Fignon’s long-awaited year of retribution although initially he played hardball with the race organiser Torriani who he still held responsible for his controversial defeat in 1984. There was probably never any danger of Fignon not competing but he and his System U team made Torriani sweat a little bit. They were in no mood to be messed around.
Torriani, coming to the end of his reign, had in fact produced a superb course, demanding in every respect, and Fignon was now back to full fitness after his serious injury problems. The route suited him, there was a score to be settled and he felt in great shape. Hampsten was also back to defend his crown and, although he was making noises about targeting the Tour, there was no doubt that if the cards fell his way the American would mount a fierce defence of his title. Alongside them, Greg LeMond was a dangerous floater, Breukink was always lively and Roche was also at the start line although with little fitness and form after his injury-ravaged 1988. It was an interesting, high-quality line-up.
The Tappone, the Queen Stage, came on stage 14 with five major passes to negotiate – the Giau, Santa Lucia, Marmolada, Pordoi and the Campolongo – and the weather was again foul alternating wildly between freezing fog, icy rain and snow flurries. Fignon was not normally a great lover of such conditions but this was a notable exception and his preparations were unusual to say the least. He got his masseur to massage him from head to foot with his strongest lotion – the equivalent of Ralgex by the sound of it – and despite the Arctic conditions Fignon insists he didn’t feel the cold all day; in fact he described it as a day from Dante’s Inferno.
Fignon went into pink but the race was far from won and Fignon woke up the following morning feeling fatigued and in pain with an old shoulder injury – the result of a skiing accident in his teenage years – flaring up under the stress of the previous day’s effort. Flavio Giupponi, who had actually won the epic stage the previous day to go into second place overall, was going well, as was Hampsten, and at this point delicious sporting irony kicks in. Fignon got through stage 15 – split stages based around Trento – but was filled with a sense of foreboding the following day when the weather again turned nasty and he was faced with another monstrous stage taking in the Tonale and Gavia passes. Five years earlier Fignon had raged when Torriani altered the Stelvio stage at short notice but on this occasion he was only too glad to see the stage cancelled altogether. An extra rest day was proclaimed. Was Torriani seeking to quietly make amends for 1984, as the Italian press suggested? Possibly but bear in mind this came just 12 months after the race director had been bitterly criticised for allowing the Gavia stage to proceed. To a certain extent Torriani was damned if he did and damned if he didn’t, the fate of all race directors.
Fignon was spared but was still suffering the following day when he underperformed on a mountain time trial, which reduced his lead to just over 1 minute on Giupponi and Hampsten, but then the fine weather returned in the mixed-terrain stages of Liguria and Tuscany and his old war wound settled down. Fignon had weathered the storm and he showed his class on a tough mountain day on the penultimate stage when he resisted attacks from Giupponi and Hampsten after Gianni Bugno had taken off to claim the stage. Revenge was almost his and, although he had to hang tough in a final marathon 53.8km TT, Fignon was good value for one of the sweetest wins of his career. His form had been rock-solid which he demonstrated a few months later when he finished second at the Tour just 8 seconds behind LeMond.
The Giro of this era was never boring but nobody, with the notable exception of Laurent Fignon who sang his praises in advance, anticipated the extent to which Gianni Bugno would dominate the 1990 edition, leading the race from start to finish. Nor would anybody have suspected that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, dead for nearly 200 years, was to play a part in that victory. Most tipsters made Fignon the favourite but, after his Herculean efforts in 1989, he was lacking motivation and form and was in any case eventually to crash out. Greg LeMond was also present with his new Z team but it soon became apparent that he had made a late start to the season and was riding mainly for fitness while Charly Mottet, a rising French star, and the recent Vuelta winner Marco Giovannetti were also likely contenders. In the event, of those named only Mottet raised a gallop and Bugno won easily. The 26-year-old was clearly a talent and had won Milan–San Remo in fine style earlier in the season but only Fignon among the riders, and indeed the press, tipped him as a winner before the start in Bari. Although the race itself may have lacked drama, Bugno’s win was a good story. Riding for the Chateau d’Ax-Salotti team, he imposed his authority right from the start by comfortably winning the opening-day 13km time trial and he continued to dominate proceedings for the next three weeks, appearing to be the strongest TT rider and rock-solid in the mountains. At no point did his victory appear anything other than inevitable and yet it wasn’t quite that simple.
A gifted, natural athlete, Bugno’s Achilles heel had been his descending and sense of balance on technical sections which was well below what you would expect from a top professional and, recognising this, he had sought and found a remedy: music. He and his team turned first to a psychologist in an attempt to improve his descending and it was he who suggested listening systematically to all the great works of Mozart for half an hour a day for an extended period and to ‘replay’ those tunes in his head when he was descending or negotiating difficult roads. This is exactly what he did in the spring of 1990 with immediate results at Milan–San Remo and then again at the Giro. He believed it helped transform his descending while his time-trialling morphed from good to very good. So dominant was Bugno that, having defended his lead through the mountains without apparent difficulty, he could even afford to make a bad mistake on the final long TT from Gallarate to Varese and still win the stage to increase his lead. On a day when the weather deteriorated quickly, Bugno had started the time trial with front and back disc wheels, which proved very tricky to handle as the wind blew. Prevaricating as to whether to stop and change to his normal road bike with regular wheels he flatted, which made his mind up for him. Despite that mid-race delay, Bugno won the TT from Marino Lejarreta by 1 minute 20 seconds which rather summed up his dominance.
Such was Bugno’s dominance that many were predicting a long reign at the Giro, but this exciting and unpredictable period in the race’s history continued with the most unexpected but equally impressive win for Franco Chioccioli who had been competing in the Giro since 1982. It would be damning Chioccoli with faint praise to call him a Giro stalwart; he was better than that, completing all 13 Giri he entered and claiming seven top-ten finishes in his career. But nobody saw this triumph coming. Chioccoli rode a textbook race and effectively clinched his victory on the Tappone, the second Dolomites stage, when he attacked on ‘Coppi’s climb’, the Pordoi, to pull decisively ahead of his nearest rival, Claudio Chiappucci. He then underlined that with a commanding performance in the marathon 66km time trial at Casteggio. In many ways it was a heart-warming story although not without controversy given Chioccioli’s sudden improvement in performance later in his career. French competitor Erwann Menthéour accused Chioccioli directly of doping but there was nothing to back his claims up and the result stood. The era of suspicion of every exceptional performance was upon us, with some accusations fully justified and proven while others were left hanging unsatisfactorily in the air.