Translated material
Pink Wine
The 93rd Italian stage race, in order to popularize cycling, started in Amsterdam, Holland, and Vinokurov became the intermediate leader of the road part of the race, which consisted of a short prologue and two stages. Already on the Apennine Peninsula, after the team time trial, the Kazakhstani lost the lead to the Italian Vincenzo Nibali (“Liquigas”), but a few days later, finishing third up the Monalcino mountain, he regained the championship.
Vinokurov did not hide his ambitions before the current Giro. After serving a two-year disqualification for blood transfusion, which he was convicted of at the 2007 Tour de France, for some time he played only for the Kazakhstan national team, then finally signed a new contract with Astana. Vino’s first serious victory after his return was success at the April Belgian one-day race Liege-Bastogne-Liège from the “Spring Classic” series. Note that Alexander, having repeatedly participated in the Tour de France and being the winner of the Spanish Vuelta 2006, had not previously attended the Giro. Vinokourov's Italian debut is excellent so far.
Particularly difficult for the peloton was the eighth stage, the first truly mountainous stage with a complex profile and a finish at the top of Monte Terminillo (1668 m above sea level). Although the riders had a hard time the day before, because the organizers laid out a 50-kilometer route along a dirt road, so the cyclists had a reason to compare the stage with the famous “Hell of the North,” that is, the Paris-Roubaix race. Having gotten dirty and regained his pink jersey on the slippery rain and muddy road, the next day Vinokurov, along with the rest of the participants, found himself in the fog. Such are the features of the Monte Terminillo pass; visibility here is almost always very poor. Vinokourov finished in the same group with his closest pursuer in the overall standings, Australian Cadel Evans, in 56 seconds. behind Danish winner Chris Sorensen.
The representative of the Russian “Katyusha” Vladimir Karpets lost a lot in the fog, falling behind by two minutes and letting a number of direct competitors ahead for high positions in the general classification. As a result, Vladimir dropped from fourth to seventh place, losing more than 2.5 minutes to Vinokurov. A small consolation for “Katyusha” at the next, ninth stage was the second place of the Italian Filippo Pozzato. Considering the far from the strongest composition of the Giro participants, our cycling group should not be content with local successes, but should at least fight for its best rider to get into the final top three. In addition to Karpetz and Pozzato, Evgeny Petrov, Sergey Klimov, Mikhail Ignatiev, Australian Robbie McEwan, Italians Giampaolo Caruso and Luca Mazzanti, and Spaniard Juan Orrach are competing for Katyusha in Italy. New tests for the peloton in the mountains begin this weekend.