2008 Giro D'Italia - Race Overview

Race Overview

The Giro started with a team time trial in Sicily. There was pre-race speculation that this stage would result in an American rider wearing the pink jersey for the first time in twenty years, as Slipstream-Chipotle, Team CSC, and Astana were among the biggest favorites to win and all had strong American time trialists on their squads. The victory went to Slipstream-Chipotle, which put their team leader, American Christian Vande Velde, in the first pink jersey. With a hilly stage ahead on day two of the Giro, Vande Velde's race lead was far from secure. He lost it to Franco Pellizotti, who finished sufficiently ahead of Vande Velde on the stage to take a lead of a single second in the overall classification. Pellizotti retained the race lead for the next three days, as those stages were flat and were contested by sprinters, with the overall favorites finishing together with the peloton in each.

The sixth stage was shortened from its original length of 265 km (165 mi) to 231.6 km (143.9 mi). This was still the race's second-longest stage, and it featured a breakaway which shook up the race standings. Eleven riders finished nearly twelve minutes in front of the peloton, and reigning Italian national road race champion Giovanni Visconti assumed the race lead, by a margin of less than one second over fellow breakaway member Matthias Russ. Russ had begun the stage 13 seconds ahead of Visconti in the overall classification, but with Visconti gaining seven seconds on Russ at the finish line and six in bonification on the stage's intermediate sprint, the young Italian became the next to wear the pink jersey. Visconti and his team Quick Step ably defended the jersey for nine days, keeping it through the hilly seventh and eighth stages, as well as in the individual time trial in stage 11 and in three flat stages. Visconti eventually lost the lead on stage 14, the Giro's first stage categorized as high mountain, as he finished more than eighteen minutes behind stage winner Emanuele Sella. The race lead passed to Gabriele Bosisio after that stage, but he was unable to hold it the next day, finishing fifteen minutes behind Sella, again the stage winner. It was on this stage that Alberto Contador took the lead that he would never relinquish.

Contador faced repeated challenges from Riccardo Riccò and Danilo Di Luca in the race's final week. They were separated by less than a minute after stage 15, and though Di Luca would falter slightly in the Giro's second individual time trial, the time gap among the three of them was just 21 seconds heading in to the Giro's final mountain stage. Di Luca faltered further in that last mountain stage, losing almost five minutes and any chance to repeat as Giro champion, but Contador and Riccò finished together and were separated by only four seconds going into the Giro's final stage, another individual time trial. Contador's superior time trial skills provided the difference in the Giro's finale. Though he finished 11th on the stage, he gained more than two minutes over Riccò, winning the Giro overall without taking any individual stage.

Emanuele Sella of CSF Group-Navigare won three stages in the race's final week and took a convincing victory in the mountains classification, leading it for the entire race. His subsequent positive tests and confessions to the use of performance-enhancing drugs outside the Giro cast serious doubt on the legitimacy of these results, however. Daniele Bennati was nearly as dominant in winning the points classification, taking three stage wins and six other top-ten finishes. He led the classification after every stage except the second and eighth, which were both won by Riccò, who thereby gained the mauve jersey for one day on two separate occasions. Though Riccò was never able to take the overall race lead, he was the winner of the youth classification, taking the white jersey from Visconti when he lost the overall lead and holding it through the conclusion of the race. That jersey had also previously passed over the shoulders of Chris Anker Sørensen and Morris Possoni.

Five teams repeated as stage winners. Four individual riders won multiple stages. In addition to Sella's three victories in the final week, the riders who won more than once were Riccardo Riccò in stages 2 and 8, Daniele Bennati in stages 3, 9, and 12, and Mark Cavendish in stages 4 and 13. Tinkoff Credit Systems also won multiple stages, with Pavel Brutt in stage 5 and Vasil Kiryienka in stage 19, after both figured into early morning breakaway groups.

Slipstream-Chipotle, Lampre, LPR Brakes-Ballan, Diquigiovanni-Androni, and Team CSC all won one stage apiece. Slipstream-Chipotle won the opening team time trial, Lampre rider Marzio Bruseghin won the Giro's first individual time trial, LPR Brakes-Ballan rider Gabriele Bosisio won stage 7 from a morning escape, Diquigiovanni-Androni's Alessandro Bertolini took stage 11 from a breakaway, and Team CSC veteran Jens Voigt was the winner of stage 18.

Success was achieved by only a handful of teams, meaning that other teams did not achieve much in the race. Though they nearly took the race lead with Matthias Russ in stage 6, Gerolsteiner had just two riders finish the race, and were never otherwise close to a notable result. Euskaltel-Euskadi had only four riders finish the race. Two other ProTour teams, Cofidis and Française des Jeux, similarly failed to be at all competitive in the Giro. None of them would return to the Giro in 2009; Gerolsteiner folded in 2008 after being unable to locate a new sponsor while Euskaltel-Euskadi, Cofidis, and Française des Jeux all made it known that they did not wish to participate and were thus declined invitations.