Gilberto Simoni atop the Monte Zoncolan |
Danilo Di Luca and Damiano Cunego duke it out |
Have you ever seen the army keeping the order like this? We certainly haven’t |
The feared climb – you can almost smell the whiff of lactic acid |
The Zoncolan is the toughest climb in Europe, without dispute. An overall 11.9% gradient but in places reaches 20%. And all after 130+km of riding.
Gilberto Simoni (Saunier Duval) has been here before of course, winning in 2003, and today attempted to make some inroads into the General Classification. Di Luca though, rode hard and managed to keep the gap down to under a minute, with Simoni moving into third place overall at the stage end.
It was team mate Leonardo Piepoli who was clearly the strongest climber of the day though, pulling Simoni to the top of the Zoncolan and pulling aside to let Simoni take the win.
Clearly happy with his first stage victory in the 2007 Giro, Simoni commented: “I´m elated because a victory such as this one is more valuable than the Giro´s podium. I had conquered this summit four years ago, but today it was different. I think that Di Luca could have won today, but I fought to make the feared Zoncolan mine, I used my team against Di Luca, making things difficult for him. If I can´t win the Giro he will be the rightful winner”.
