How Bad Do You Want It? / GIRO D'ITALIA!!!

The Tour Baby!? Hell no, The Giro Baby!!! Holy shit what a race. Somebody take this French pressed swill from me and hand me an Italian espresso.

Yesterday, Paolo Savoldelli of Discovery Channel had a 2 minutes and 9 seconds lead over Mr. Simoni of the Lampre squad (fka Saeco), a 3:00 lead over Jose' Rujano Guillen, hereafter known as Rujano, of the Colombia Selle-Italia squad, and a 3:08 lead over Danilo Di Luca of the Liquigas squad.

By the time I rolled my ass out of bed and pulled up the live internet updates, they were all already on the Colle Delle Finestre, the 2nd of 3 climbs in today's stage. Simoni, Rujano and Di Luca had worked together and put a 40 some second lead. When they hit the Boulder style racing dirt road, the gap to Savoldelli began to grow, and the maglia rosa (leader's jersey) began to evaporate off his back.

At the top of the climb, the Simoni group's lead (remember 3rd and 4th place in the overall are with Simoni) was at 2:20. Paolo had essentially lost the Giro on the last day with only 20 km to go on a 190km (that's 117 miles people) stage. Was Paolo done? Were his legs shot from yesterday's time trial effort. Oh no no. You see, Mr. Savoldelli is known as a heck of a descender, and there is 5km descent to the finishing climb. He tucks in and catches up with 3 guys that had been on a break earlier and the day. Alliances are made on the descent, and by the time the 4 in the new Savoldelli group hit the flat section before the final climb, Savoldelli had made up 26 seconds.

The final climb begins. A Category 1 Climb. There are 4 categories. 3, 2, 1, and HC (hors category, "beyond classification"). The Simoni/lead group are going up. Di Luca cramps and falls of the pace. It's just Simoni and Rujano left for the stage win and possibly the overall. With about 5 km to go, Rujano attacks and almost immediately puts 50 seconds on Simoni. For a while it looked Simoni was going to take the whole shebang, and in a matter of seconds it looks as if he is going to be relegated to 3rd place overall.

Let us not forget about Savoldelli. He and his new buddies are chasing hard. Rujano takes the stage win. Simoni comes in 25 seconds behind, Di Luca in 1:33 behind, and finally Savoldelli at 1:55 behind the winner. That's 1:30 behind 2nd place overall Simoni. Savoldelli held his overall lead on Simoni by 28 measly seconds. We're talking 3 weeks of racing here folks. 20 stages and 3,465 kilometers of racing. If you don't know how to do the calculation, that's over 2100 miles. Some people don't even drive that much in a year. All of those miles and hours in the saddle, and the difference between 1st and 2nd is 28 freaking seconds. That is what I call a Grand Tour.

There is one more flat stage tomorrow, but most likely nothing will happen and Savoldelli will take it to Milan for the win. However, stranger things have happened.

I couldn't imagine watching this on live TV. I probably would have peed my pants. I got pretty revved up watching people typing what was happening on www.eurosport.com and www.velonews.com. In fact, I took the ol' puter places I probably shouldn't have. I won't explain with detail, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

How bad do you want it? Will Simoni definitely proved that he wanted the win, but many times desire creates great achievement and sometimes it doesn't. Today, Simoni's desire wasn't quite enough, but he sure did lay it all on the line. His big mouth has turned me off at times, but today he earned some respect in my eyes.

Well, it isn't even July and the Discovery Channel team (f.k.a. The Postal Service squad and still known as Lance's team) has a grand tour win.

It's time for me to hop on the trainer, pedals some squares, and hopefully make my self better when it's time for ME to finally race. I'm tired of watching all these other suckas suffer. At least I have last weeks Giro highlights to keep me entertained. Hopefully I won't piss my pants.