Double storm on the Giro that Nibali is winning hands down: to the meteorological one with snow and frost that blew up today's Gavia and Stelvio stage was added, insidious and devastating, that of doping with the news of Danilo Di Luca's positivity. Again for Epo, hired before the Giro di Toscana: the rider from Abruzzo, winner of a Giro d'Italia, had just returned to racing, after the disqualification he suffered for the same reason in the 2009 Giro, where he finished second behind the Russian Denis Menchov. Cold outside, the atmosphere of the Giro has also frozen inside, because Di Luca – until yesterday praised for his newfound combativeness – will also be "an idiot", as Luca Scinto, the team manager of his team, defined him. Vini Fantini, who welcomed him convinced of his honesty, but the new injury brings cycling and the Giro back to an ancient wound that has never been eradicated. The organizers of the Giro, who expelled him from the race, feel betrayed. Nor is it enough to say, to dismiss the case as an isolated incident, that Di Luca belongs to the old cycling world, the one used to using Epo as the only way to stay in the group and try to win. Lance Armstrong's cycling to understand each other, the one – as the Texan champion admitted – that without Epo you can't win seven Tours in a row. Now it is said that for days at the Giro there were many suspicions about Di Luca: too perky for someone who returns to racing at the age of 36 after a very long stop, often on the attack, animator of breakaways, even yesterday in the time trial dominated by Nibali , Di Luca had surprised by his performance on the ramps of Polsa. Armstrong himself, the most famous of the Epo adepts, got in touch via Twitter to give his opinion: “Even if I have zero credit on the doping issue, I can't help but think: really Di Luca? You are fucking stupid."
That of the rider from Abruzzo is the second case of doping to emerge at the Giro: certainly, also due to the name and his history, he makes more noise than the one involving the Frenchman Sylvain Georges. In the Italian cycling of the XNUMXs, now an orphan of Pantani and with the season of Simoni and Savoldelli at sunset, Di Luca was with Ivan Basso and Miche Scarponi the most popular rider for stage races. To say, today after the crime, that Di Luca is the only bad apple of recidivist left in the peloton seems only more of a hope than a certainty, because of riders involved in doping cases in the past – from Garzelli to Scarponi himself – there are still not a few in this Giro.
Be that as it may, today will be remembered as one of the blackest days in the history of the Giro which would have wanted to celebrate Vincenzo Nibali's deserved victory so far in another way. A shaken and crippled Giro, certainly unlucky with bad weather that haunted him continuously, chasing him in every part of Italy until the disastrous final, in a scenario worthy of the Winter Olympics. Could the organizers have prepared alternatives given that for days it was known that General Winter would return to the Dolomites? Perhaps something better could be devised. Once upon a time maybe we would have raced anyway, in the name of epic and legend, but if the new cycling wants to cut cleanly with that of the past smelling of Epo and chemical additives, it is also acceptable to stop the race when the conditions are prohibitive.
Let us forget forever the Bondone di Gaul and similar rides on the Pale Mountains. Let's enjoy Nibali's exhilarating flight yesterday but let's also get used to the image of a champion like Wiggins who slips on the ground in the rain on the San Silvestro descent, gets up but petrified by fear he can't even pedal towards the finish line in Pescara . A less epic but more human cycling, if it wants to be even more credible.
Buy the e-book “CYCLING & DOPING – Armstrong: cosi fan tutti”, by Aldo Bernacchi.
