Ivan Basso Re-Evaluates after Stage 16
The winner of the 2010 Giro d’Italia is not faring as well in the Tour de France. He started the race with a middle-of-the-road performance in the early flat stages, presumably saving himself for the mountains. The presumption proved true when he finished 9th in the first mountain stage, and sat on the outskirts of the top 10 overall until the 16th Stage, without ever quite reaching a single-digit placement.
"I think the first part of the Tour de France hasn't been very good for me because I came out of the cobblestones stage with more of a deficit than I should," Basso said during the first rest day. "A rider like me should have been in the first positions but my problem in my profession is my lack of agility that penalizes me and costs me too much energy. But this is the Tour. It's so competitive, it's not simple to do just what you want."
At the first rest day, the Team Liquigas rider was 13th overall, 2:41 behind the race leader Cadel Evans. He climbed to 10th in the next stage while the injured Evans fell well back and went from podium contender to somebody just trying to reach Paris within the time limit. The first mountain stage put the competitive spirit back into the 32 year-old Italian, who Lance Armstrong once called his greatest competitor.
"It takes me back to the same ambitions I had before the Tour started," said Basso. "Yesterday I was at the front at my ease. But this stage has said very little about the hierarchy of the Tour. All the favourites are still up there. The only thing that happened was Armstrong's bad luck. His crash has jeopardized everything.”
While never duplicating the success he had in the first mountain stage, Basso remained within a stone’s throw of the top 10 until Tuesday's Stage 16 got the best of him. Pierrick Fedrigo won the stage at the head of an eight-man group. The group of nine had led the stage for most of the day, leaving the 50-man chase group 6:45 behind the stage leader. Basso was not in this 50-man group. He wasn’t even in the first grupetto with his teammates Daniel Oss and Francesco Bellotti.
"I'm really tired and worn out, it was an incredibly tough day,” said Basso. “I started the stage to honour the race because even my directeur sportif told me not to start. But I've never liked retiring and so I tried to hang on and stay in the Tour.”
The Italian eventually crossed the finish-line in 111th place, 34:48 behind the stage winner, dropping him from 14th to 27th, with no chance of making up the 37 minute, 18 second gap to the race leader Alberto Contador. At the finish line, Basso didn’t take the drink offered by his team director, and rode right past the Italian media.
"This has been a tough Tour for me that always seemed to be uphill,” he eventual said. “Right from the start in Rotterdam it was more difficult that I think we all expected. This illness has made it almost impossible.”
Basso has suffered from bronchitis since Monday and the antibiotics have taken their toll, clearly shown by his sudden drop in performance. But it’s also because, like every other Tour de France contender who rode in the Giro d’Italia this year, he is simply exhausted from a very demanding season. Targeting podium finishes in both Grand Tours will – and has – exhausted almost any rider.
"Now I just want to think about the rest day and cancel this bad day from mind. I'm not used to being in the gruppetto when the big-name riders are racing hard up front. I can promise you it's not much fun."
Suddenly, like Cadel Evans, Basso is simply targeting survival in the final – and most difficult – mountain stage, and would happyily just to make it to the Champs-Élysées on July 25th.
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