Nice move by Simoni

"Robert Chung" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

He showed good aggressiveness. The chase behind was just a tiny bit too disorganized. I can see
the maglia rosa swapping shoulders a couple more times before Milano.

Yeah, it was wonderful to see a major tour contendor actually attack somewhere besides a mountain
stage. As much as I have to admire the calculating style of riders nowadays, I really admire someone
pugnacious enough to try and put their competitors in a world of hurt, Hinault-style. This whole
stage reminds of a flattened version of Hinault's attack on the Stelvio (1980?) when he sent
Bernadeu up the road, then attacked and joined him to put minutes and minutes into everyone else.
It's too bad Simoni's teammate didn't have better legs -- with a little more help on the flats,
Simoni could have easily taken a minute out of Garzelli.

This is going to be a stormin' Giro...

TC

How about those pulls by Casagrande ... he had the bunch S T R U N G out !

jw

yeah, i wonder if bruyneel was watching?

his "one size fits all" method of attacking the last half of the last mountain on a stage works fine
for armstrong, but not heras. i dont know if this strategy cost heras spain last year, but it
certainly did not help. and, who is to say he could have taken more time out of gonzalez by
attacking earlier in stages? but, why not at least try???

regardless, simoni understands he needs all the time he can get with the long time trials coming up,
and acted accordingly. bruyneel would have had heras sit in the group eating banannas all day.

chris

Quoted message said:

Subject: Re: Nice move by Simoni From: "TC Rider" [email hidden] Date: 5/20/03 11:57 AM
Pacific Daylight Time Message-id: <[email hidden]>

"Robert Chung" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

He showed good aggressiveness. The chase behind was just a tiny bit too disorganized. I can see
the maglia rosa swapping shoulders a couple more times before Milano.

Yeah, it was wonderful to see a major tour contendor actually attack somewhere besides a mountain
stage. As much as I have to admire the calculating style of riders nowadays, I really admire
someone pugnacious enough to try and put their competitors in a world of hurt, Hinault-style. This
whole stage reminds of a flattened version of Hinault's attack on the Stelvio (1980?) when he sent
Bernadeu up the road, then attacked and joined him to put minutes and minutes into everyone else.
It's too bad Simoni's teammate didn't have better legs -- with a little more help on the flats,
Simoni could have easily taken a minute out of Garzelli.

This is going to be a stormin' Giro...

TC

"Robert Chung" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

He showed good aggressiveness. The chase behind was just a tiny bit

too

Quoted message said:

disorganized. I can see the maglia rosa swapping shoulders a couple

more

Quoted message said:

times before Milano.

This really shows something - last year we have Garzelli and Simoni being treated like dopers and
there were claims of "That's why they're so much faster than the rest". But this year they have
the vampires on them like leeches and they are still the two guys head and shoulders above
everyone else.

Any bets that the Tour is going to be as interesting as the rest of this Giro?

Especially without Cipo. We won't even have his outrageous jerseys to liven it up.

"Robert Chung" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

He showed good aggressiveness. The chase behind was just a tiny bit too disorganized. I can see
the maglia rosa swapping shoulders a couple more times before Milano.

Simoni's own comment on his website ( simonigilberto.itsimonigilberto.itOpen ↗ )

`When I got away I didn't aspect they would let me go, but when I saw I had a lead of 30 seconds I
said to myself ... now they must come and get me.The pink jersey, that pink jersey I had two years
before, and which I couldn't put on last year. My opponents now have to suffer to take it away from
me. However, now begins the hard part ... in my opinion the next four days will be decisive'

Benjo Maso

Very strong race by Simoni. Should give gim a lot of confidence for the climb of the Zoncolan on
thursday. I expect Garzelli to crack there. He's good but he has the disadvantage of the little
competition that he had before the giro. Someday he's gonna pay the price for that.