News Letter

David Olle in Italy, +39 333 5959 217, anytime

For those in Australia, SBS does a daily report on the Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) called by Matt Keenan in the evenings, catch them if you can.

Giro d'Italia, May 8 - 30, 2010, Report Wednesday, May 12 32.5 km Team Time Trial

Savigliano → Cuneo

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At last, THREE Italian's lead their international race
(Front page of La Gazetta tomorrow for sure!).

Today's race was a Team Time Trial, where each team has a separate start time, and commences with it's full complement (nine riders if no one has gone home) (or positive). In a perfect TTT, a team will finish together, all riders being equally strong, but this never happens, as riders will tire and drop out along the way. A Team's finish time is taken when the 5^th rider crosses the line.

Results
1 Liquigas-Doimo 0:36:37

2 Sky Professional Cycling Team 0:00:13

3 Team HTC-Columbia 0:00:21

General classification after stage 4
1 Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo 10:44:00

2 Ivan Basso (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo 0:00:13

3 Valerio Agnoli (Ita) Liquigas-Doimo 0:00:20

Skippy report: Chris Sutton, Team Sky, flatted early into his TTT. Cameron Meyer (Australian ITT champ) along with skip team mate Jack Bobridge (whose combined ages do not equal mine), on Garmin Transitions, got rained on for nearly 100% of the course. Cadel's team, also with plenty of rain on their early start, set an early lead time, but did not hang onto the hot seat for long. Of note, Cadel's former team, who's poor TTT skills were instrumental in his demise in the 2009 TdF, beat his current team today, by more than 30 seconds. Graeme Brown (Rabobank) maintains the sprinter's ‘Ciclamino' jersey.

Media report: ‘Twas interesting to read, in yesterday's ‘La Gazetta', Mario Cipollini's paragraph bagging Liquigas for not helping Cadel on Monday's broken up stage. His inference was that the green Italian team was not doing so well, and could quite easily have helped BMC, thus earning a favour that would benefit them later in the race. Cipollini, ‘Thumbs Up 9' for this comment.

Weather report: For those not following the vision on SBS2, it is still cold here. After another huge snow season, a lot of the passes remain buried deep, under a white blanket. Away from the mountains it has rained for the past 4 days, and more cold weather and rain is predicted. Summer is coming, but like Cadel's team support, you just can't see it.

Cuisine report: At our hotel in Venasca (30k from Cuneo) Minestrone soup, brought to our table in a tureen, seemingly bigger than Hume weir (and definitely fuller), but not tomatoe based, as is my penchant, but featuring many different types of beans...and barley. Three bowls, was more than enough to progress directly to a dessert of Pannacotta.

The Bike Race:

Three stages kick start the race in Holland, before they transfer to Savigliano in Italy's north west Piedmonte region. From here the race heads further south, through Tuscany, across to Abruzzo before returning to the Dolomites in the north-east and the event's Grand Finale in Verona. 198 riders (14 from Australia) complete 21 stages over 3 weeks, visiting 2 countries en route, with just 2 rest days. 3,416 kilomtres, running May 8 - 30.

The Writer:

David Olle's cycling reports are used by ABC radio's 774 DRIVE show in Melbourne, ABC radio

702 breakfast show in Sydney, ABC national overnights and 3RRR FM's Breakfasters. He chats regularly with all. He also created and produces the magazine style TV show ‘Topbike TV' which is seen throughout Australia and New Zealand on community televison. The reports are also published here, www.cyclesportnews.com, along with any photos.

These reports are independent, opinionated, Australian biased, and could miss a day here and there, along with containing the odd error.

We aim to send these reports daily, while any worthy bike race is on. You have the power to control your interest in these reports, see details below.

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David Olle

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