The 2009 Giro d'Italia was the 92nd running of the Giro d'Italia, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It was held from 9 to 31 May 2009, and marked the 100th year since the first edition of the race. Starting in Venice and finishing in Rome, 22 teams competed over 21 stages. Four of the top ten finishers in this edition later had their results voided.
The Giro was raced on a unique path through Italy, taking the peloton to some historic cities and towns in Italian cycling. Though the route lacked any well-known, storied climbs, the many intermediate and mountain stages in the second and third weeks of the race proved deceptively difficult. The 10th and the 16th stages were both called the race's queen stage, as both contained multiple difficult mountain climbs.
Riders protested during the ninth stage, a criterium in Milan. This protest was nominally about the overall safety conditions of the stage, and was sparked by life-threatening injuries sustained by Pedro Horrillo the day before. In the protest, riders declined to contest the stage except for a final sprint finish, a decision that proved controversial with race organizers and fans.
Denis Menchov won the race, having taken the lead in a long time trial in stage 12, and defended vigorously against attacks by his closest challenger, Danilo Di Luca, during the mountain stages of the final week. Di Luca came in second, 41 seconds behind the winner, and won the mauve jersey as points classification winner. Subsequent to the Giro, both he and third-place finisher Franco Pellizotti became embroiled in doping scandals, were given bans, and had their results stripped.
Teams
Twenty-two teams were announced for the Giro. These included fifteen ProTour teams, and seven Professional Continental teams. Three ProTour teams did not wish to participate, and were thus not invited: , , and . Conversely, the organizers of the race originally declined to invite , but changed this decision on 23 April, inviting them as the Giro's 22nd and final team. Each team sent a squad of nine riders, so the Giro began with a peloton of 198 cyclists.
The 22 teams that took part in the race were:
Pre-race favorites
The Astana team did not include 2008 race champion Alberto Contador, who chose not to defend his championship, but did include Lance Armstrong, who had recently returned from retirement. Though his appearance was put in doubt after he crashed out of stage 1 of the Vuelta a Castilla y León and broke his collarbone, Armstrong announced on 16 April that he would start the Giro despite undergoing surgery for his injury. star Cadel Evans was originally announced to be taking part in the Giro, but he publicly announced shortly afterward that he would not ride it, and accused RCS Sport (the organizers of the race) of using his name to promote the event. Contador and Evans both chose to focus on the Tour de France later in the season.
Many riders were named as contenders, including Ivan Basso, Levi Leipheimer, Armstrong, Damiano Cunego, Carlos Sastre, Gilberto Simoni, Danilo Di Luca, Marzio Bruseghin, and Denis Menchov. Before his collarbone injury, Armstrong was considered an overall favorite, and it was also noted that three time trials, including the insertion of an unusually long time trial mid-race, might favor him. Pre-race analysis noted that Armstrong, when on his best form, would be a rider very likely to gain from having such a long race against the clock included in the Giro.
Former winner Stefano Garzelli named Leipheimer as the favorite, as did some American media outlets. Armstrong considered Basso to be the favorite when speaking about the Giro in December 2008. Other news outlets also referred to Basso as the pre-race favorite.
Only a small number of stages were expected to end in a sprint, barring a successful breakaway. Sprinters in the event included Mark Cavendish, Alessandro Petacchi, Allan Davis, Filippo Pozzato, Robert Hunter, Robert Förster, Tyler Farrar, Juan José Haedo, and Oscar Gatto.
Route and stages
The first Giro d'Italia was held in 1909, and the 2009 route was designed to commemorate the 100th anniversary, though interruptions due to World War I and World War II meant this was only the 92nd race. Milan, which had for years been the city in which the Giro concluded, was the site of a ten-lap criterium on the same circuit that began the first Giro d'Italia. Every city that hosted a stage start or finish in the first Giro was visited in 2009 with the exception of Genoa, although Arenzano (in the province of Genoa) hosted the finish to stage 11. The 11th stage also went over the Passo del Turchino, a climb used every year in the classic cycling race Milan–San Remo.
The tenth stage was planned to mimic stage 17 of the 1949 Giro d'Italia, which was won by Italian cycling legend Fausto Coppi en route to the overall victory. That route originally included the Col d'Izoard, a climb in France which has been featured in the Tour de France numerous times. Race organizers were forced to alter this stage to cover only the Italian side of the Alps rather than also visit France, as there were concerns over radio communication in the area, and the roads stood the risk of landslides. It was subsequently made longer than first planned, with an additional, shorter climb added. Stages 10 and 16, the latter of which went over Monte Petrano and two other first-category climbs, were both called the race's queen stage.
The route received a small amount of criticism for failing to include any well-known and especially difficult climbs such as the Passo del Mortirolo or Monte Zoncolan, instead including stages featuring multiple climbs with lesser ascents. Race director Angelo Zomegnan responded to the criticism by saying, "I won't follow the philosophy that the selection of climbs has to be determined by their names."
The 21 stages of the 2009 Giro d'Italia were divided into five categories: one team time trial, seven flat stages, four intermediate stages, seven mountain stages and two individual time trials. The type of stage together with the average speed of the winner decided how much time each cyclist would be allowed to finish that stage before being eliminated from the race. + Stage characteristics and winnersStageDateCourseDistanceTypeWinner1 9 May Lido (Venice) Team time trial210 MayJesolo to Trieste Flat stage311 MayGrado to Valdobbiadene Flat stage412 MayPadua to San Martino di Castrozza Mountain stageDi Luca finished first, but the stage was subsequently awarded to Garzelli513 MaySan Martino di Castrozza to Alpe di Siusi Mountain stage614 MayBrixen to Mayrhofen, Austria Intermediate stage715 MayInnsbruck, Austria, to Chiavenna Intermediate stage816 MayMorbegno to Bergamo Intermediate stage917 MayMilano Show 100Milan - Milan Flat stage18 May Rest day1019 MayCuneo to Pinerolo Mountain stageWhile Danilo Di Luca's results have been removed, with other riders promoted, it is not yet clear that other riders have been promoted to results attained by or awarded to Franco Pellizotti1120 MayTurin to Arenzano Flat stage1221 MaySestri Levante to Riomaggiore Individual time trial1322 MayLido di Camaiore to Florence Flat stage1423 MayCampi Bisenzio to Bologna Mountain stage1524 MayForlì to Faenza Intermediate stage1625 MayPergola to Monte Petrano Mountain stage26 MayRest day1727 MayChieti to Blockhaus Mountain stage1828 MaySulmona to Benevento Flat stage1929 MayAvellino to Mount Vesuvius Mountain stage2030 MayNaples to Anagni Flat stage2131 MayRome Individual time trial Total
Race overview
The Giro began with a team time trial in Lido, a barrier island in the city of Venice. The starting order of the teams was decided by a random draw. , the first team to take the course, won the stage, giving their star sprinter Mark Cavendish the first pink jersey as leader of the race. Cavendish was defeated in a sprint finish the following day by Italian Alessandro Petacchi, who was riding for the team. Petacchi became the next wearer of the pink jersey, after he won the Stage 3 sprint into Valdobbiadene. Cavendish went on to win three mass-start stages, but 's success was not limited to Cavendish's victories nor the team time trial, as Edvald Boasson Hagen and Kanstantsin Sivtsov also took stage wins.
The first two high mountain stages of the Giro revealed the men who would battle for the overall race title. Danilo Di Luca of took the win in Stage 4, and put himself just 2 seconds off the pink jersey. The next day, he claimed the jersey, when he was second to stage winner Denis Menchov at Alpe di Siusi as an elite group of favorites emerged including Menchov, Di Luca, and others who had performed well on the climb and were in high places in the overall standings.
Menchov was fifth after Alpe di Siusi, but rose to second before stage 12, the very long and hilly individual time trial in Cinque Terre. There, he claimed a convincing victory; only Levi Leipheimer finished within a minute of Menchov's winning time. Di Luca was nearly two minutes slower than him, finished sixth on the stage, and fell to second overall, with Menchov assuming the race lead. Di Luca tried repeatedly to shed Menchov during the remaining mountain stages to make up the time difference, which was never more than a minute. The two riders were involved in sprints for time bonuses at the finish line in stages 16 and 17, as well as an intermediate sprint in stage 20. Menchov was consistently quicker than Di Luca in these sprints. With his superior time-trial skills providing the difference in the final stage, the Russian was able to emerge as Giro champion, despite a dramatic fall in the final kilometre before the finish line.
Stefano Garzelli was the winner of the mountains classification, gaining points for consistent high placings on the summit stage finishes, as well as a brief breakaway on the mountainous stage 10. The points classification was won by Di Luca, after he finished in the top ten in eight of the road stages. The youth classification was won by Kevin Seeldraeyers, who remained consistent after Thomas Lövkvist lost nearly 25 minutes on stage 16. Lövkvist had, for one day earlier in the race, led not just the youth but also the general classification.
Controversy arose during the ten-lap Milan criterium of the ninth stage, when the riders staged a protest over what they viewed as unsafe riding conditions in that stage and those that preceded it. The most visible cause for the protest was Rabobank rider Pedro Horrillo's accident during the eighth stage; Horrillo sustained numerous fractures and head injuries after tumbling over a barricade on the roadside while descending the Culmine di San Pietro. Horrillo fell more than , and nearly died as a result of his injuries. After spending five weeks in hospitals in both Italy and his native Spain, Horrillo eventually recovered, though the day on the Culmine di San Pietro was his last as a professional cyclist, as he retired before the 2010 season began.