Stefano Garzelli
Stefano Garzelli (born 16 July 1973 in Varese ) is a sports director and former Italian cyclist. His biggest success was the overall win at the Giro d' Italia 2000.
Career
Garzelli began his career as an assistant for Marco Pantani. His first big success was the victory at the Tour de Suisse in 1998 with a lead of 53 seconds on the Swiss Beat Zberg. As Pantani at the start of the Giro d' Italia in 2000 had mold problems, Garzelli was released from all helper services for his cycling team Mercatone Uno and was allowed to intervene in the decision for the overall victory. In Prato Nevoso, the goal of the 18th stage, he took the stage victory. On the penultimate stage, a mountain time trial from Briancon over the Col de Montgenevre to Sestriere, he finally took the hitherto sovereign leading Francesco Casagrande from over a minute and took the pink jersey that he did not relinquish it on the final stage. Garzelli dedicated then the overall victory of his team captain. In the media Garzelli was called at this time in reference to Pantani nickname also the little pirate.
At the Giro 2002 Garzelli won the second and fifth stage and wore the pink jersey for four days. The 10th stage, he was not allowed to compete because he was tested positive for the masking agent probenecid and locked for doping for six months. He also had to pay 100,000 Swiss francs fine, half of which were asked for five years on probation.
At the Giro d' Italia in 2003, he won the third stage. After his second victory on the Monte Terminillo, the aim of the seventh stage he also took over for three days the " Maglia rosa", before it was taken from him by eventual overall winner Gilberto Simoni. Garzelli was second overall with over seven minutes behind.
In 2004, he won the Giro towards the end a victory on the penultimate stage. The overall winner Damiano Cunego he could not compromise and ultimately finished with five and a half minutes behind sixth place result.
2007 won the Varese two stages of the Giro, but played no role in the overall standings.
At the Giro 2009 Garzelli had a bad day on the stage to the Alpe di Siusi and lost a lot of time. Otherwise, he held both on the mountain and in the time trial with the favorites, won the first prize at the highest point of the Giro Cima Coppi, conquered the mountain jersey and finished at the end of sixth place with nearly nine minutes behind.
In March Garzelli decided the itinerary Tirreno- Adriatico for themselves. He benefited from the better stage placings against his compatriot Michele Scarponi same time, he could only replace on the final stage due -won in intermediate sprints Bonfikationssekunden as a leader.
For Giro d' Italia in 2010 traveled the Varese with the aim to win a stage. But he was also with Ivan Basso, Gilberto Simoni, Damiano Cunego, Carlos Sastre, Alexandre Vinokourov and Cadel Evans to candidates on the Giro victory. But early on the first real mountain stage he lost at the Monte Grappa early connection to the group of favorites and came up with a large gap to the other favorites to the finish. For this he won the mountain time trial up to Plan de Corones. He was aged 36 years and 317 days, the oldest Giro stage winner in 90 years. Three days later, on the difficult stage to Aprica he attacked very early and took an outlier after another. But before the summit of the Mortirolo he was overtaken by the forcierenden Ivan Basso, Vincenzo Nibali and Michele Scarponi and passed. In the descent from Terminillo he fell then so hard that he left behind stage winner Scarponi the target in Aprica reached almost half an hour behind and had to get to the next stage.
Also at the Giro 2011, he wanted to win a stage. At the first summit finish on Monte Vergine he held with the quietly behaving favorites and could sprint to the fourth stage space. However, on the next stage he crashed just before the finish line, no longer came up to the favorites and lost the stage victory of his compatriot Oscar Gatto a little time. On Mount Etna the Varese drove a better race. He won the sprint of a five-member group favorites and was third stage, behind the Dominator Alberto Contador and the Venezuelan climbers Jose Rujano. On the 13th stage of the Grossglockner he let his team make leadership work together with the team Euskaltel to the Basques Igor Anton. However, he fell back before the attacked favorites for the overall victory. On the next serious mountain stage on the Zoncolan he spared himself and then tried a day later to decide as outliers the royal stage for themselves. In a large breakaway group of climbers such as the Tour de France winner of 2008 Carlos Sastre, the Giro 2007 winner Danilo Di Luca, the four-time Giro stage winner and former Mountain King Emanuele Sella and the winner of a mountain top finish at the Vuelta a España 2010 Mikel Nieve he drove out a lead of over ten minutes before he set out to fight with Johnny Hoogerland and Mikel Nieve to the Cima Coppi at Passo Giau. Even before the summit he distanced the Spaniards and the Dutch, extended his lead to almost one and a half minutes and won for the second time after 2009 Cima Coppi, the. On the Passo Fedaia had his pursuer Nieve only about 45 seconds behind and the final ascent to Val di Fassa the Italian was again caught up and overtaken. Garzelli reached the goal within two minutes behind Nieve in the pouring rain as a stage runner-up. Although the Varese despite still managed appealing performance as the fifth place in the mountain time-trial to Nevegal, not the striving for stage victory, he had taken with his solo trip on the royal stage the leadership of the mountains classification and collected a fairly large margin of points, so that it for this special classification the second time as the Cima Coppi won after 2009 for themselves.
After the Giro d' Italia in 2013, he ended his career as a professional cyclist and moved to the end of the year in the Sports director of his team.
Team
Achievements
1996
- Piccolo Giro di Lombardia
1998
- Two stages and General Classification Tour de Suisse
1999
- GP Miguel Indurain
- A stage Basque Country Tour
2000
- A stage Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda
- Appreciation and a stage Giro d' Italia
- A stage in the Tour de Suisse
2001
- A stage Basque Country Tour
- A stage in the Tour de Suisse
2002
- Two stages of the Giro d' Italia
2003
- A stage of the Giro del Trentino
- Two stages of the Giro d' Italia
2004
- Aragon Tour
- A stage of Tour de Romandie
- A stage of the Giro d' Italia
2005
- Tre Valli Varesine
2006
- Around the Henninger Tower
- A stage of Tour de Luxembourg
- Tre Valli Varesine
- Trofeo Melinda
2007
- A stage of the Giro del Trentino
- Two stages of the Giro d' Italia
- A stage of Slovenia Tour
2008
- Two stages of the Giro del Trentino
- Two stages Vuelta a Asturias
- Grand Prix de Wallonie
2009
- Mountain stage Giro d'Italia
2010
- Appreciation Tirreno- Adriatico
- A stage of the Giro d' Italia
2011
- Mountain stage Giro d'Italia