Читать книгу The Pain and the Glory: The Official Team Sky Diary of the Giro Campaign and Tour Victory - Chris Froome - Страница 7
ОглавлениеA team time trial requires a series of short, intense efforts as riders take turns at the front of their train. This one, hosted by the island of Ischia, also called for strong stomachs. It would be an early wake-up call and a long day for the riders and attendant Giro circus because of the need to sail by ferry to Ischia and then back to Sorrento on the mainland, south of Naples, ready for the next day’s road stage to Marina di Ascea.
‘The team time trial is known as the worst day on a Grand Tour because it’s hectic, nervy and very, very stressful. A lot more can go wrong than go right. It was going to be 17.4km right on the rivet,’ said Hunt, who was bringing his clinical approach as former head of the GB men’s team pursuit squad to this choreographed race feature.
Rigoberto Urán concurred. ‘Team time trials are very complicated in the management of different people’s strengths,’ he said. ‘We’ve a mixture of climbers, workers and time trial specialists. Bradley is so strong; he was going to do a lot of the work, but get the distribution of effort wrong and it can be painful. If you’re not 100 per cent, it’s agony, because you’re at full gas the whole distance. But we managed that well . . . and that’s why we won.’
Wiggins, Urán, Cataldo, Henao and Puccio crossed the line together in a time of 22 minutes and 5 seconds, set up brilliantly by turns from Pate, Knees, Siutsou and Zandio. The victory established a 9 seconds margin over Movistar and 14 seconds over Vincenzo Nibali’s Astana. ‘It was a big highlight, really cool to be part of that,’ said Pate. ‘Puccio in the pink jersey! He was over the moon – and he’s a very stereotypical Italian!’
As if proof of the Giro’s inherent unpredictability, it was young Salvatore Puccio – not Dario Cataldo, Team Sky’s Italian national time trial champion – who was awarded the maglia rosa. ‘There was confusion because Dario was the first rider across the line but Puccio was the leading Team Sky rider after the first stage,’ said Knees. ‘Dario had been sent to wait by the stage for the podium ceremony. Salvatore was in the shower when I heard the commentator confirm the results. I had to knock on the shower and tell Puccio he’d won the jersey. He was saying, “No, no, no, it must be Dario,” and I was yelling, “No, it’s you, quick, get out of the shower!”’
‘Salvatore was absolutely flummoxed. He, we, didn’t expect it,’ says Hunt. ‘Sky had never won a team time trial in a Grand Tour before, so it was a first, a great day for the team. To see Salvatore in pink was the icing on the cake.’
After the podium ceremony, Puccio fulfilled his media obligations, including an extensive interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport. Accompanied by team doctor Richard Freeman, he then had to report to doping control and missed the ferry back to the mainland. ‘The organisers had a speedboat ready to take him to Sorrento,’ laughs Hunt. ‘The doc lived it up, lounging on the back of the boat like a playboy, but Puccio was seasick!’
