Giro d'Italia 2011

Pratonton perlumbaan dan kegemaran

Manakala Giro mempunyai penunggang peloton banyak ketara, termasuk 6 bekas pemenang Grand Tour, kemungkinan kegemaran adalah sentiasa Alberto Contador pada tahun . 2008 Giro juara, yang telah begitu juga memenangi 2008 Vuelta 1 España dan tiga edisi Tour de France, yang diumumkan pada bulan April 2010 bahawa beliau akan bertanding Giro pada tahun 2011. Walaupun status beliau telah dimasukkan ke dalam keraguan selepas ujian positif bagi clenbuterol di Tour de France 2010, dia telah dibersihkan oleh persekutuan negara pada bulan Februari 2011 dan dapat kembali ke perlumbaan, walaupun kes itu masih pended rayuan terakhir untuk Mahkamah Timbangtara Sukan kemudian pada tahun 2011. Contador merupakan pilihan hangat bagi kemenangan keseluruhan. Juara bertahan Giro Ivan Basso memilih untuk tidak kembali, lebih suka memberi tumpuan kepada Tour de France kemudian dalam musim ini. Beliau secara ringkas dianggap menunggang sebagai domestique untuk Vincenzo Nibali, tetapi memilih terhadapnya kerana keadaan fizikal pada masa dan perasaan yang berbuat demikian akan menghormati perlumbaan. Giro 2011 itu, edisi ketiga berturut-turut, dan keempat dalam lima tahun lepas, di mana juara bertahan tidak kembali untuk mempertahankan kejuaraan.
Yang lain lima bekas Tour pemenang Grand dalam bidang Stefano Garzelli, Danilo Di Luca, Denis Menchov, Carlos Sastre, dan Vincenzo Nibali. Daripada lima, hanya Menchov dan Nibali dianggap pesaing keseluruhan realistik. Pelumba lain yang dinamakan sebagai pencabar termasuk Roman Kreuziger, menunggang sebagai pemimpin Astana pasukan dan pelumba dilindungi Tour Grand bagi kali pertama dalam kerjayanya, naib juara Giro d'Italia 2010 David Arroyo,  kapten dan 2010 Giro finisher tempat keempat [Michele Scarponi]], dan Joaquim Rodríguez. Penunggang lagi menyatakan sebagai darkhorses termasuk Sastre, rakan sepasukan Contador dan pelumba penyokong utama Richie Porte, Di Luca, Igor Antón, Garzelli, Domenico Pozzovivo, juara kebangsaan Itali Giovanni Visconti pada tahun  , dan pemimpin dua Tiago Machado pada tahun   dan Yaroslav Popovych. Visconti telah diberikan bilangan perlumbaan yang tidak teratur sebanyak 150, memakai sebagai juara Itali kebangsaan untuk memperingati 150 tahun penyatuan Itali. Manakala skuad biasanya diberi nombor dari kumpulan yang sama sepuluh, seperti 151 melalui 159, nombor yang berakhir pada sifar jarang dikeluarkan. Skuad Farnese Vini-Neri Sottoli Visconti memakai nombor 150 melalui 158.
Penyiasatan Mantova kes dadah yang berterusan, yang melibatkan ahli-ahli  pasukan, kerana ia telah dikenali pada tahun 2009, mempunyai kesan ke atas perlumbaan. Ia terjejas  pasukan itu sendiri, sebagai pengurus mereka Giuseppe Saronni terbabit dalam penyiasatan dan meletak jawatan sebagai pengurus pasukan sejurus sebelum Giro bermula. Beliau telah digantikan oleh bekas pengarah sukan  Roberto Damiani. Kontinjen mereka untuk Giro khusus tidak termasuk mana-mana rider atau kakitangan yang terbabit dalam penyiasatan. Terkemuka ini pelumba adalah Giro bekas pemenang Damiano Cunego, walaupun Damiani merasakan dia akhirnya akan dibersihkan daripada sebarang salah laku. Sementara BMC Racing Team tidak menurunkan kegemaran keseluruhan, diberikan bahawa manusia atas mereka Cadel Evans memilih untuk memberi tumpuan pada Tour de France, mereka juga terjejas oleh penyiasatan itu, bagi tahun kedua berturut-turut. Hanya kerana mereka mempunyai sebelum Giro 2010, pasukan yang digantung Alessandro Ballan dan Enjoy Santambrogio, ahli-ahli  pasukan pada tahun 2009 yang dinamakan dalam penyiasatan. Sekali lagi seperti mereka pada tahun 2010, pasukan diaktifkan semula dua pelumba hanya selepas Giro berakhir.
The near total dearth of flat, sprinter-friendly stages did not stop the three arguably best sprinters in the world, Mark Cavendish, Tyler Farrar, and Alessandro Petacchi, from all taking the start. One sprinter who was expected to start, 's Andrea Guardini, was not part of the start list. Though his sporting director at the Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey had promised him a place in the Giro should he win two stages at that event (Guardini did indeed win two stages in Turkey), the team believed he would be better served continuing to take part in somewhat smaller races. Other sprinters in the Giro peloton mainly came from much smaller teams and teams with little overall ambition. Quick Step and  sent two sprinters apiece—Gerald Ciolek and Francesco Chicchi for the Belgian team and Robbie Hunter and Robbie McEwen on the American squad. Giro debutants  had among their squad Slovenian sprinter Borut Božič. 's sprinter was Francisco Ventoso, one of the season's most prolific winners to date. The small Androni Giocattoli and Colnago-CSF Inox also sent sprinters, Roberto Ferrari and 2010 Giro stage winner Manuel Belletti, respectively. The  team had intended to send Daniele Bennati, a former winner of the points classification in the Giro d'Italia who had had great success at the recently-run Circuit de la Sarthe. After a crash at the Tour de Romandie where he sustained multiple fractures and a lung contusion, he was forced out of the Giro. That squad therefore turned their sprinting hopes to the rider originally set to be Bennati's leadout man, Belgian sprinter Wouter Weylandt.

Race overview

The Giro began with a team time trial in the city that served as Italy's first federal capital, Turin. The  squad won this stage, making their rider Marco Pinotti the first wearer of the race leader's pink jersey. That team's focus the next day was not to defend Pinotti's race lead, but to try to deliver their star sprinter Mark Cavendish to the victory, which would have the indirect effect of him overtaking Pinotti for the pink jersey. Cavendish indeed became the new race leader, but after an awkward final sprint it was not he but Italian Alessandro Petacchi who won the day. David Millar then became the third race leader in as many days when he finished with a breakaway group that was 21 seconds the better of the main field in stage 3, though this result was obviously overshadowed by the death of Wouter Weylandt earlier in the stage.
After the procession on day four, the fourth stage to be competitively run featured yet another new race leader. On the dirt roads of Tuscany, which had provided for one of the more spectacular stages in the 2010 Giro d'Italia, Dutch rider Pieter Weening won the stage with an 8-second time gap against the field. That, coupled with the 20-second time bonus for winning the day, gave him the pink jersey. There was some stability in the overall standings at this point, as the race's top riders finished together, or nearly so, in the next three stages.
Stage 9 was the first major mountain stage, featuring two ascents of Mount Etna, including a summit finish. It was on this day that strong overall favorite Alberto Contador first seized control of the race. Just after Androni Giocattoli's José Rujano attacked out of the leading group on the road on the way up to Etna for the last time, Contador did likewise. Rujano struggled mightily to hold Contador's wheel and no one else came close to reaching the pair. Contador won the stage, his first Giro stage win despite having won the Italian Grand Tour in 2008, and immediately attained a minute's advantage in the overall classification. In his five previous Grand Tour wins, Contador had never lost the race lead after taking it, but he had also never taken it so early on in the race. As teams who have riders with a legitimate chance to win a race overall will generally try to avoid defending the lead for too many days, lest they tire their support riders out early and leave their leader vulnerable, there was speculation that Contador may tactically relinquish the jersey. The Spaniard himself hinted that such a move may be in his plans. This would be likeliest to happen in the heavily undulating stage 11. The breakaway group for this stage was hard-fought and late-forming, since someone from its number could potentially become the new race leader. While Garmin-Cervélo's Christophe Le Mével, who entered the day third overall and had on two other occasions come within a time bonus of claiming the jersey, made the group, neither he nor anyone in it was destined to take pink. Largely under the impetus of Michele Scarponi's  team, the breakaway group was caught before the finish. Contador and the rest of the overall favorites finished at the front of the race, with riders well down in the standings claiming the time bonuses, meaning Contador retained the race leadership after all.
Contador took the most time against the main field out of any day in stage 13. On this day, which ended at the Grossglockner in Austria, he and Rujano again finished well ahead of the main field. As they approached the finish line, Contador did not attempt to sprint for the win, seemingly content to allow Rujano to take it. Their minute and a half time gap, plus the time bonus for second place, gave Contador a lead of over three minutes in the overall standings. Only in the 2009 Tour de France had he ever held a larger lead. The next two days were extremely difficult high mountain stages, both won by members of the  team. Contador finished the best of any rider in the top five overall on both days, and so further padded his advantage. Wearing a black armband to memorialize fellow Spanish cyclist Xavier Tondó who, though not a participant in the race, had passed away while it was run, Contador dominantly won the stage 16 uphill individual time trial. This result put him nearly five minutes clear of the next-best rider, the largest such advantage he had ever held in any race. In stage 19, Contador again finished with another rider ahead of the main field. This time it was Astana's Paolo Tiralongo, a former teammate of Contador's. Just as he had with Rujano earlier, Contador appeared to allow his companion a stage win he could have easily taken himself. Contador later commented that the victory, the first of Tiralongo's 12-year career, was meant as a gesture of thanks to the Italian for all the support riding he did for him in 2010 when the two were on the same squad. Although Contador claimed that he was not going to give his strongest effort in the stage 21 individual time trial, the Giro's final stage, his ride was still good enough for third place, extending his winning margin to over six minutes, giving him his sixth and statistically most dominant Grand Tour championship. Contador's two stage wins and numerous top five placings also made him the winner of the points competition, by a substantial margin. Michele Scarponi and Vincenzo Nibali completed the podium, in that order, having targeted one another once it became obvious that Contador's advantage was insurmountable. Nibali held second place on stages 13 and 14, but Scarponi overtook him on Gardeccia, finishing a minute and a half better (only six seconds the lesser of Contador), and never relinquished second place. Stefano Garzelli was in the breakaway on the Gardeccia stage and took maximum points on three of the day's five climbs, and second place points on the other two. It was largely thanks to this performance that he won the mountains classification at the end of the race. Roman Kreuziger, still eligible by a matter of months, won the youth competition with his ride to sixth place overall.
On the whole, success proved to be fairly widespread. As did Contador, Cavendish won two stages, stages 10 and 12, but prior to Cavendish's second victory no team, let alone individual rider, had won two individual stages. Four other teams – Androni Giocattoli, , , and  – eventually repeated as stage winners. Androni Giocattoli won the ill-fated stage 3 with Ángel Vicioso and later stage 13 with Rujano. 's wins came on the two most difficult stages in the race, the back-to-back high mountain stages that preceded the second rest day. Their leader Igor Antón won the controversy-laden day ending at Monte Zoncolan, when the Monte Crostis climb was removed from the route. Mikel Nieve the next day won the stage that Contador described as the hardest of his life, a seven and a half hour day with five high climbs ending at Gardeccia. Following Petacchi's win in the contentious sprint that finished the first road stage, the  team took another stage win with young Diego Ulissi in stage 17, after another contentious sprint in which Italian national champion Giovanni Visconti actually crossed the line first but was relegated to third for shoving Ulissi. The  had winners in stage 6 with Francisco Ventoso on an uphill sprint and in the Giro's last road race stage with Vasil Kiryienka in a solo breakaway that finished almost five minutes better than the rest of the field. Rabobank, , Farnese Vini-Neri Sottoli, Ag2r-La Mondiale, Liquigas-Cannondale, Astana, and Garmin-Cervélo each won a single stage. With 's Garzelli claiming the mountains classification and Yaroslav Popovych from  the Trofeo Fuga Pinarello, it could be said that 15 of the 22 teams that completed the race came away with some sort of victory.
Much like had occurred at the final podium celebrations for the 2009 Tour de France, the wrong national anthem was played for Contador. Race organizers mistakenly played an old Spanish anthem with lyrics favored by former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. The Spanish national anthem as it should have been played would have been purely instrumental.

Death of Wouter Weylandt

During the descent of the Passo del Bocco in stage 3,  rider Wouter Weylandt crashed and suffered catastrophic injury. Race doctor Giovanni Tredici, and the doctor for the Garmin-Cervélo team were in cars very near Weylandt's group on the road, and administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation for approximately 40 minutes. Doctors also gave Weylandt adrenaline and atropine to try to restart his heart, though Tredici stated that resuscitation efforts were rather clearly in vain, and that Weylandt was already dead by the time they got to him. Doctors were never able to revive Weylandt, and he was declared dead on the spot. A short time later, Weylandt's body was airlifted off the descent and taken to a nearby hospital, where the pathologist conducting the autopsy concluded that the Belgian had died immediately upon crashing. Weylandt's death was the first at the Giro in 25 years, and the first at one of cycling's Grand Tours since Fabio Casartelli died during the 1995 Tour de France.
Manuel Antonio Cardoso of  had been nearest to Weylandt when he crashed, and stated that Weylandt had touched a small retaining wall on the left side of the road with either his pedal or his handlebars, and was then catapulted across the road to the other side, where he again collided with something. He had looked behind him to ascertain his exact position in the race when he clipped the wall. Teammate Tom Stamsnijder also witnessed the accident, saying "it was a very hard fall." Italian police, conducting an inquest into Weylandt's death, also took an official statement from the Portuguese rider at Team RadioShack's hotel. A memorial was placed at the crash site, where Weylandt's pregnant girlfriend and his mother, along with cyclists, passersby and residents of nearby villages, placed flowers. The  team remained in the race for another day at the encouragement of Weylandt's family. David Millar, who had taken the race lead that same day, spent the evening discussing with members of , Weylandt's best friend Tyler Farrar, and his girlfriend and mother how best to pay tribute to the fallen rider.
Race director Angelo Zomegnan said in a post-stage press conference that race officials would respect whatever decision the peloton made regarding the next day's stage. As usually occurs when a rider dies in the midst of a multi-day cycling event, the next day was not competitively raced. Instead, the stage was preceded by a minute's silence, and ridden as a procession in Weylandt's memory. Each of the 23 teams took to the front of the peloton for about 15 minutes, and members of , along with Farrar, were allowed to finish first with their arms around each other. Millar led the rest of the field across the line a few seconds later. No results for the stage were recorded, and it did not count towards the general classification or any of the points competitions. After the stage, instead of any podium presentations, the four jersey classification leaders (Millar, Alessandro Petacchi, Gianluca Brambilla, and Jan Bakelants) appeared on stage with the  team to lead another moment of silence. Subsequently, Farrar and the remaining  squad all decided to leave the race. Farrar later revealed that his inclusion with the Leopard Trek squad in the final moments of the neutralized stage was a decision made solely on their part, one for which he felt extremely grateful.
A moment of silence was also held for Weylandt before stage 11, as his funeral took place the same day. Pieter Weening also gave the first pink jersey to be presented to him on the podium to Weylandt's surviving family, and stage 11 winner John Gadret stated that he had had Weylandt in his thoughts as he crossed the line and dedicated his win to him, even though the two were not well acquainted.

Death of Xavier Tondó

On 23 May, during the second rest day of the Giro, Xavier Tondó, the reigning Vuelta a Castilla y León champion and one of the leaders on the season for the , was killed in a freak accident at home while preparing to train with teammates. He was reportedly crushed between his car and a garage door.
Despite not taking part in this edition of the Giro, Tondó had taken part in the 2010 edition and was a popular, well-liked rider. Race leader and eventual winner Alberto Contador, along with many others, rode the stage 16 individual time trial with black armbands. The stage was preceded by a minute of silence. Tondó's teammate Branislau Samoilau posted a time that was provisionally best much of the day and was visibly overcome with emotion when interviewed by assembled media after his ride. Contador, the day's eventual winner, dedicated the victory to Tondó, as the two were acquainted despite never having been teammates.
Five days later, teammate and close friend Vasil Kiryienka rode to victory in a solo effort, and he too dedicated the stage victory to Tondó, pointing skyward as he crossed the finish line. The team had met to consider withdrawing from the race after Tondó's death, but instead the riders unanimously voted to ride on. Kiryienka commented that the squad at the Giro hoped to get a further stage win (as Francisco Ventoso's win had come before Tondó's death) to honor him, while other members of the team grieved with Tondó's family. In the final days of the race, many fans wrote signs memorializing Tondó as they had with Weylandt earlier on.

Aftermath

Immediately after Weylandt's death, Giro officials announced that they would not issue his dossard number 108 in future editions of the race. His number was a prominent part of signs held by fans on the roadside at not just the Giro but other events later in the season as well, including the Tour of California where his death was part of the reason the first stage of that race was canceled due to safety concerns. Many other races, mostly those held in Weylandt's native Belgium, also began the practice of not issuing the number. The Belgian federation criticized this gesture, saying it would not bring Weylandt back and would only serve to continually remind fans and those in the sport of Weylandt's death. They issued the number for the Belgian national road race championships.
About a month after the race concluded, reports began surfacing which stated that Giro director Angelo Zomegnan was going to be ousted from that position. Though praised for his delicate handling of Weylandt's death, Zomegnan's handling of the teams' protest of and eventual removal of the Monte Crostis from the Giro race route was seen much less approvingly. A further month later, RCS Sport, owners of the race, confirmed that Zomegnan had been removed from his largely autocratic position as race director. He was replaced by RCS general director Michele Acquarone and Mauro Vegni, along with a team of former professional riders. Zomegnan remains as an RCS consultant and director of the 2013 UCI Road World Championships in Florence. Zomegnan had held the position since 2004, beginning with the 2005 Giro d'Italia.
Along with the new organizational team came a certain measure of fan involvement in the direction of the 2012 Giro d'Italia. Fans of the race were able to vote on its official Facebook page for two climbs, from an initial pool of 64, to appear in the race. After several rounds of voting, the Passo dello Stelvio and the Passo del Mortirolo were chosen. They were later announced to be part of the same stage for the 2012 Giro. Fans were also given the opportunity to choose from among three prototypes for the design of the pink jersey in the 2012 Giro. Fans could also participate in a promotion called "Tweet Your Maglia Rosa" where they would submit 140-character or fewer Twitter messages describing what the pink jersey means to them. They were set to be printed on the jersey along with tweets from Ivan Basso, Cadel Evans, Alberto Contador, and Vincenzo Nibali, in the respective riders' native languages. Ten tweets – six to be printed in Italian, two in English, and one each in Spanish and French – were eventually chosen by fan voting.

Contador's results stripped

Alberto Contador rode the Giro with full knowledge that he was to answer to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) regarding his positive test for clenbuterol at the 2010 Tour de France, since his national federation cleared him of doping charges but both the UCI and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) chose to appeal the ruling. He rode and won with the most dominant Grand Tour performance of his career, and later rode a relatively normal and full 2011 season as his CAS date was continually pushed back. It was originally scheduled for June, to occur soon enough to decide conclusively his status prior to the 2011 Tour de France, but it was instead pushed back to August and then again to November.
The hearing was at last held in November, with a verdict expected in January 2012. This, however, was also subject to a delay. Finally, on 6 February 2012, the court spoke, overturning the Spanish federation's decision to clear Contador and assessing the rider a backdated two-year ban, from the date of his adverse test at the 2010 Tour de France. The backdated ban meant any results obtained from the time of that test to the time the court announced its verdict were to be vacated and awarded in turn to previously second-placed riders. This effectively made Michele Scarponi the new Giro champion and points winner, and it made José Rujano and Vincenzo Nibali into stage winners in this Giro. The decision was reminiscent of that handed down in the Alessandro Petacchi case from the 2007 Giro d'Italia. The court's ruling opinion was that the minute amount of clenbuterol found was probably not caused by a doping regimen, but that strict liability rules meant that Contador had nonetheless violated WADA's World Anti-Doping Code. The court held that the adverse finding itself was never in doubt, but merely how the substance had entered the athlete's body. This was not a matter under which they could exonerate him.
Reaction to the decision, and to the protracted nature of the case itself, was widespread and negative. Five-time Giro winner Eddy Merckx expressed surprise at the result and disappointment that it could further sully the sport's image, saying "It's like someone wants to kill cycling." Since-ousted race director Angelo Zomegnan called the decision to strip the Giro championship "nonsense," noting that Contador was permitted to ride at the time and there were no irregularities of any kind during the race. His successor Michele Acquarone was also upset by the decision, believing that damage had been done to the Giro and noting that RCS Sport would need to commission a new trophy to award to Scarponi.
Scarponi, as well as John Gadret, the rider elevated onto the podium now in third place overall, both expressed sympathy for Contador and the feeling that being awarded these prestigious results in a court of law nearly a year after the race concluded kept them from feeling as good as they would were they attained on the road. Both Scarponi's overall championship and Gadret's podium finish constituted the first such results for either of them in a Grand Tour. Gadret, who had supported Contador's presence in the Giro peloton when the race began, reconsidered his position in hindsight, saying the Spaniard's attendance irrevocably changed the race. Further reactions from other personalities within the sport toward the ruling and the case itself were near universally negative. WADA celebrated the decision, calling the court "robust and thorough" in its jurisprudence of the World-Anti Doping Code.

Minor classifications

Other less well-known classifications, whose leaders did not receive a special jersey, were awarded during the Giro. These awards were based on points earned throughout the three weeks of the tour. Each mass-start stage had one intermediate sprint, the Traguardo Volante, or T.V. The T.V. gave bonus seconds towards the general classification, points towards the regular points classification, and also points towards the T.V. classification. This award was known by various names in previous years, and was previously time-based. It was won by Jan Bakelants of the  team.
Other awards included the Combativity classification, which was a compilation of points gained for position on crossing intermediate sprints, mountain passes and stage finishes. Original general classification winner Alberto Contador won this award at the race's conclusion; upon his disqualification it passed to mountains category winner Stefano Garzelli. The Azzurri d'Italia classification was based on finishing order, but points were only awarded for the top three finishers in each stage. It was originally won, like the closely associated points classification, by Contador, and passed to José Rujano when the Spaniard's results were stripped. Additionally, the Trofeo Fuga Pinarello rewarded riders who took part in a breakaway at the head of the field, each rider in an escape of ten or fewer riders getting one point for each kilometre that the group stayed clear. 's Yaroslav Popovych was first in this competition. Teams were given penalty points for minor technical infringements. Six different teams – Liquigas-Cannondale, Androni Giocattoli, , Quick Step, BMC Racing Team, and  – avoided incurring penalties over the course of the race, and so shared in winning the Fair Play classification.