Garzelli succeeded, he won the Tirreno-Adriatico cycle race

Two winning places in the intermediate sprints allowed Garzelli to catch Scarponi up and win the Tirreno-Adriatico Race. “it seemed like a film, the greatest victory after the Giro d’Italia 2000.”

 

Stefano Garzelli broke his “always-in-second-place” spell after winning the Tirreno-Adriatico Race, the second most important stage-race after the Giro d’Italia in San Benedetto del Tronto, historical arriving place of the race. Garzelli started the race with a gap of only two seconds from the leader Michele Scarponi; Garzelli, the champion of Besano, managed to reduce the distance thanks to two placings in the intermediate sprints. It was a minimum recovery but for Garzelli it was enough to win the Tirreno-Adriatico Race for the first time in his career. To write out the final classification table they had to control the series of placings gained in the eight stages and Garzelli managed won despite his rival, Scarponi, gaining the Chieti winning-post.

The race won by the Norweigian baby-champion Edvald Boasson-Hager in the final sprint was a very strategic stage-race which allowed him to beat Alessandro Petacchi. The tackle between Garzelli’s team Acqua&Sapone and Scarponi’s Androni Giocattoli rapidly took place because during the stage there were not any significant spurts.

The first intermediate sprint happened when there still remained 40 kilometres to go; Scarponi was too slow in the rush, and so decided to get the very quick Ginanni to the head of the race followed by Rojas from Spain and Garzelli who was launched by his team mate Luca Paolini. At this point Scarponi had just a second of distance on Garzelli but perfectly knew that the distance was enough to get the second winning-post.

  

The occasion arrived when there were still 20 kilometres to go: the peloton left the field, Androni sent sprinting Ginanni (who won again) and also Rodriguez, who did his job arriving at the second place but Garzelli (piloted again by Paolini) centred the third place that brought the final outcome. The last kilometres were run with bated breathe to avoid spills (one of these got Mark Cavendish out of the way, the probable for the sprint) and exciting finishing tape break for the D’Angelo&Antenucci captain of team Acqua&Sapone, first biker from Varese to won the Tirreno-Adriatico Race. “It seemed like a film, this win paid me back for the unlucky second places from yesterday and the day before yesterday, with interests.” This is what Garzelli said after the win to RAI’s microphones. “Thanks to my team that had an extraordinary race and to Paolini, striking when leading me to the moving winning-post”. Well done to the Andreoni-Diquigiovanni Team which tried everything to get Scarponi to win,as it was fair to do.” To those who reminded him that next Saturday there is the Milano-Sanremo Race, Garzelli answered: “I won’t think about it now: let me enjoy this win, also because I haven’t won for a year and half. I think this is my greatest undertaking, after the 2000 Race, made valuable by the fact that I’m not so young and that I really worked hard. And so in these cases, it is even better.”