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The Lion King gets his crown
What a year. On Sunday in Zolder, Belgium, Mario Cipollini capped an incredible, sometimes turbulent season by taking the world champion's crown that he has coveted ever since the Zolder course was announced.
Cipollini was carried along by a unified Italian squad that delivered him to the line with the precision usually reserved for a well-oiled professional trade team. And at the finish, Cipollini easily beat out Australian Robbie McEwen and German Erik Zabel for the rainbow jersey, and left his two rivals fighting for the scraps.
The Zolder course had "sprinter" written all over it, with smooth roads and a relatively flat profile with the exception of a few rolls and one short climb with less than 3km to go on the circuit. There was some speculation during the week that the race might not come down to a big sprint finish, whether because of rain or simply attrition after the full 256km (159-mile) distance.
The rain stayed away, however, although the morning leading up to the 10:30 a.m. start was damp and cold, with a misty fog hanging around until just before the start.
Under those conditions, the field of 201 riders got underway on the Circuit Zolder auto racetrack in front of a growing crowd of spectators. With 256km in front of him, it was no surprise to see Frenchman Jacky Durand, the perennial early attacker, take off just 1km into the race. That move failed, but Durand was at it again at the end of the lap, which was completed at a fast pace of 47.407kph.
There would be no long exploit for Durand, but when he was caught on lap 2, teammate Christophe Moreau made a successful countermove, joined by Kazahkstan's Dmitri Mureyev. Those two would ride together for the next seven laps, with their lead growing in excess of 3:30 over the peloton, but Mureyev dropped back at lap 7.
Moreau's lead steadily dwindled until he was caught on lap 11, at which point, the peloton readied itself for the real racing with the sun poking out through the Belgian clouds and shining down on the field, which had remained mostly intact through the first three hours of racing.
The next serious attack came on the 12th lap, when Swiss Oscar Camenzind pushed it up the Sterrenwacht climb, which by that point was jammed packed with rabid Dutch and Belgian fans. The former world champion was joined by Great Britain's David Millar and Austrian Peter Wrolich in one last attempt to foil the sprinters.
The Camenzind group would build its lead to 1:20 with only 90km of racing left, but at about that time, McEwen's Australian team went to work. They were joined by the Polish squad, and the group of three was hunted down by the 16th time up the Sterrenwacht climb.
From there, the Italian squad went to work going to the front and setting a furious pace. "It was incredible," said American Mike Sayers, who was a workhorse for the U.S. team for the first 15 laps of the race. "This was the most incredible race I've ever done from a speed standpoint. Every time I looked down we were going 35, 33, 31 [mph]."
With the Italians driving, the pace on lap 17 was 49.87kph. Lap 18 was even faster: 51.143kph (31.7mph) over the 12.8km circuit.
Under the taxing pace, the escapes were few over the last couple of laps. On the 18th time up the Sterrenwacht, Paolo Bettini launched a little attack, followed by Belgian favorite Johan Museeuw and the American Guido Trenti. That move didn't last long, though, and Trenti, the Italian-American dual citizen, drifted back into the top 25 riders in the peloton, where he and teammate Fred Rodriguez battled for position over the final two laps.
"Guido and I were fighting, but it was against teams with 10 guys, and we were just being pinballed around," said Rodriguez, who would finish. "By the time the field sprint came, you had just lost a lot of power."
Life was definitely much better for Cipollini, whose squad was in complete control. "Today, everybody did his job with great professionalism. Everybody did what was expected of him today," said Cipollini of the Italian team, which has been plagued by infighting at previous world championships.
The Italians continued to drive on the final lap, while the Australian and German teams fought to set up McEwen and Zabel respectively. A sprint finish was now a certainty.
With just 4km to go, a crash threw the peloton into chaos, and only about 30 riders made it through still in contention. Among those were still a number of top sprinters: Zabel, McEwen, Jaan Kirsipuu, Jimmy Casper, Baden Cooke and Julian Dean, as well as the Americans Rodriguez and Trenti, who would finish 23rd and 16th respectively. One rider who was not so lucky was the lone Canadian Charles Dionne, who had ridden well with no teammates, and until the crash was in position to at least give it a go in the field sprint.
But the crash was of no consequence to Cipollini, who was up front tucked in behind his Italian leadout train as they cleared the final climb and dropped back down to the auto track and the finish line.
"I was in third position with two very strong teammates in front," said Cipollini. "They let me go with 150 meters to go, and that's all I asked of them."
From there, Cipollini had a clear line to the world title, and he sealed the deal, while behind all of his Italian teammates raised their arms in triumph. McEwen beat out Zabel for second after a rough fight for Cipollini's wheel.
"I talked to Robbie after and told him this is cycling, not boxing," said an irritated Zabel at the post-race press conference, to which McEwen replied, "It wasn't quite a boxing match; for that you need to use your hands."
Cipollini, though, was far above the fray. In a year that saw him win Milan-San Remo for the first time along with Ghent-Wevelgem, win six Giro stages, "retire" after his team was snubbed from the Tour de France, and come back to win three stages at the Vuelta, the world championship was an unimaginable capper to his season, even though he had been targeting it all year long.
"It's like a dream," he said. "I think it'll take some time before I realize what has happened."
He has all winter.
A Super-Mario Fact File:
Name: Mario Cipollini
Nationality: Italian
Born: March 22, 1967
Born in: Lucques (Italy)
Height: 1.90 m
Weight: 76kg
Major Victories
One-day races:
World championships 2002
Milan-San Remo 2002
Gent-Wevelgem 1992, 1993 and 2002
GP de lEscaut 1991 and 1993
GP E3 1993
Luis-Puig Trophy 1999
Tour de la Province de Syracuse 2001
Stage races:
Tour de France - 12 stage wins (1 in 1993, 2 in 1995, 1 in 1996, 2in 1997, 2 in 1998, 4 in 1999, yellow jersey for six days)
Giro d'Italia - 40 stage wins (and three points competition wins forbest sprinter), pink jersey for six days.
Vuelta a Espana - Three stage wins
Paris-Nice - Eight stage wins
Teams
Del Tongo (1989-1991)
GB (1992/1993)
Mercatone-Saeco (1994/1995)
Saeco (1996-2001)
Acqua e Sapone (2002)
To follow the blow-by-blow account of today’s race, click here to read the live reports filed from Zolder by VeloNews's Bryan Jew.
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