The Milan stage of Giro 2009:

The start of a cycling stage is like an ancient, holy ceremony. From the formal point of view, races always start in the same way: there's a little stage, the riders arrive there one by one or in little groups, get off their bikes, write their names on a sheet of paper and then they hop on their saddles again, ready for the long day of work that is patiently waiting for them.
However, don't let appearances fool you. In reality, although the ritual is always the same, the start of a cycling race is always unique. On some mornings, the weather is cold and the riders don't feel like smiling. Other times, the sun is shining and the day's task is going to be easy, so the riders chat and have fun together. On some occasions instead, they know that they have some steep climbs waiting for them. In that case, the athletes look concentrated, focused. Some of them cross themselves in a religious way before the start. Others try to hide their nervousness by chatting with the other guys. Some start calculating the time limit. A few, the most confident grimpeurs, talk with the journalists and announce that they're ready to fight for the victory.
Every day of the race is unique, just like the atmosphere at the start. It always seems the same, but it is never equal to the one of the day before

On the 17th May 2009, as I made my way towards Piazza Duomo in Milan, the atmosphere at the start of the 9th stage of the Giro was calm, relaxed, even joyful. The sun was shining, the tourists and the milanesi were enjoying a rare day without cars in the center of the town and the riders were happy because the first tough week of the Giro del Centenario was finally over. Said week had presented some tough stages, like the ones ending in Alpe di Siusi and in San Martino di Castrozza. As a consequence, after just 7 days of racing, the Maglia Rosa was already on the shoulders of Danilo Di Luca, one of the fiercest contenders for the overall victory.
The Milano stage was supposed to be a very calm and relaxing one. The riders would have to face different laps of a 11.6 km long circuit. Then after about 14 laps on this flat terrain, the sprinters would finally be able to fight for glory in the last few meters. Amongst the possible stage winners there were guys like Cavendish, Farrar and Petacchi, 'fast wheels' used to showing their brevity all around the world.

As soon as I arrived in Piazza Duomo, I was surprised to see it transformed in a kind of 'Piazza Giro'. A big, pink stage had been built on one side of the square and, when I made my triumphal entrance in the piazza, Cipollini was there speaking with a journalist. Immediately after Cipollini, it was Paolo Bettini's turn to use the microphone. At the time, Bettini had just retired from racing, so I found it strange to see him wearing usual clothes at the start of a Giro stage.

After meeting a friend, my family and I could find a nice place where we could watch the riders arrive on the square one after another. Pozzato arrived together with a journalist and he looked very relaxed, just like most of the other guys.HTC Columbia riders arrived all together, without leaving us the time to check the numbers on their jerseys in order to recognize them.
The only one who arrived alone was Thomas Lovkvist, who was wearing his well-deserved white jersey. My mother had asked him for an autograph, but he didn't stop when he saw her. Perhaps he didn't understand what she wanted from him or perhaps he didn't want to be bored by supporters already at the start of the stage. However, the girls of the family forgave him after a few seconds. In fact, when my sister told him, 'Bravo Thomas!' he turned his head towards her and smiled in an adorable way. No female creature in the vicinity could ignore such cuteness.

Also Saxo Bank riders arrived at the start all together. Jens Voigt said something to a German supporter next to me, but I couldn't understand what they had said (something hilarious, since they both laughed).

Armstrong arrived together with some policemen (as usual...), while an Italian rider of Fuji Servetto, while riding in front of me, said, 'Minchia, pavé!' ('Fuck, cobblestones!'). The funniest thing was that he wasn't even riding on cobblestones.... But perhaps the poor boy had some bad memories of the previous stage, during which the riders had to face Bergamo's cobblestones (which actually aren't as tricky as Paris-Roubaix's ones).

When the last rider (Armstrong) had arrived to the start, the race began. The atmosphere was very relaxed in the peloton and during the first laps Simoni and Basso even found the time to wave at two girls who were cheering for them.

During the afternoon, however, my family and I started to realize that the atmosphere was even more relaxed than usual in the peloton. Then, all of a sudden, the peloton stopped. There was a big TV screen in front of us and I saw Di Luca taking a microphone and starting to talk. Unfortunately, I couldn't hear what he was saying. A Rabobank car had stopped right in front of me and I could see the same scene on the little TV behind the passenger seat. A mechanic got out of the car for unknown reasons, but I was too shy to ask him what was going on.

However, the peloton soon started racing again. At 4 pm, anyway, they still had a lot of laps to do. I phoned home and found out what was going on: the riders had started a strike because they thought that the stage parcours wasn't safe enough. My dad was pretty pissed off at the news, but I was too euphoric to care about it.
Eventually, my family and I found a spot that wasn't very crowded near the finish-line (and right in front of the team buses). We went there to watch the two final laps of the race.
Katiusha's bus was right behind us. After the riders had ridden in front of us for the last time (Basso wasn't in the main group, but his time was going to be neutralized because of the strike), some fans went there (to the bus) to see the final sprint (which was won by Cavendish). As well as watching the sprint, I could take a glimpse of the inside of the bus, which looked very comfortable.
After watching the sprint on team Katusha's TV, my family ran to Columbia's bus (that you can see here)... ...while I ran to Saxo Bank's one. Saxo was my favorite team at the time and I was looking forward to meeting some of my favorite riders (Voigt and Cancellara) for the first time in my life.
As you can see in the photo below, right outside the team bus there was a little table with some nuts and crisps on it. In fact, the area around the bus got really crowded immediately after the finish of the stage and some lucky people could even go over the barriers and chat with the riders. The snacks were probably organized for those special supporters and a man with a lot of little rolls soon made his appearance on the scene.

Fabian Cancellara was one of the first riders to arrive at the bus. A boy asked for his gloves (in Italian) and Fabian replied by saying, "I'll give them to you if you give me 50 euros". He said it in a really funny way, with a smile on his face, and everyone started to laugh. After putting his bike next to the bus, the Swiss rider started to talk with the mechanic. He was speaking German and he said something about his bike wheel. Then he added something about the parcours (if I understood correctly, he mentioned the tram tracks) and he got on the bus in order to take a shower.
In the meantime, Jens Voigt had also arrived at the bus and he immediately started to sign autographs for the supporters. He was very nice with everyone and, when a woman told him about a bike crash that one of his friends had had, Jens looked very sorry to hear about it. After making sure that everyone had got his autograph, Voigt finally got on the bus to take a quick shower.

One after the other, Bak, Klostergaard, Lund, Van Goolen and Goss reached the team bus. When Cancellara got off it, he started talking with Riis and with other people. Once in a while he would pay attention to the supporters who were screaming his name and he would sign a few autographs.

At a certain point Lars Bak walked towards the supporters with lots of photos of him in his hand. He gave one of them to each fan outside the bus and then he signed them all. He eventually forgot whose pen he was using, so he tried to give it to me (he eventually remembered that the pen was actually his).

After having signed autographs for everyone, Jens Voigt started to look around and, at a certain point, he came up to me. At the time I was still waiting for Cancellara to sign an autograph for me (or even just look in my direction), but Jens probably thought that I was waiting for him to write his name on the little note-book that I had in my hands. However, when he approached me, I told him (in German) that he had already signed an autograph for me and I thanked him again for that. Then I asked him whether I could have a picture taken with him. In fact, Jens is one of my favorite riders and I consider him one of the best sportsmen in the world, from the human point of view.

15 minutes after the photo was taken, I finally managed to get the autograph from Cancellara. I was sooo happy!!! Then, when the Saxo Bank guys eventually started to get prepared to go away, I went to meet my family near Columbia's bus.
In the meanwhile, my sister had taken some good pictures there. For example, here you have Michael Rogers talking with a supporter.Below instead there is Edvald Boasson-Hagen being interviewed by Norwegian TV. It was his birthday that day and so the journalist (a cute girl - that's what my mother told me) gave him a big birthday cake. All the fans noticed he was very embarrassed. In fact he blushed red and spoke in a very shy way to the reporters.

Of course, my sister also took a pic of her hero, Thomas Lovkvist. Unfortunately, she took the photo when Lovkvist had just started to walk towards the bus, so you can just see his back in it.
However, in spite of the low quality of her pic, my sister was on cloud-nine because she had eventually managed to see Thomas, to tell him 'Bravo!', to take a picture of him and to ask him whether he could sign her an autograph. He eventually agreed and my sister has always kept that little autograph-copybook next to her bed since that day.

Actually, it wasn't that easy to get Thomas' autograph.

In fact, my sister said that he had taken a strange path in order to get to the bus and so he had almost got on it without being noticed by the supporters who were waiting for him (my family and a couple of Swedish supporters). Anyway, the tifosi were more cunning than him and they waited for Lovkvist right in front of the bus' entrance, so that he had to stop with them for a few minutes if he wanted to get on the bus.

As soon as I rejoined my family, they also told me a nice story about Konovalovas, a young rider of Cervélo, who at the time hadn't won anything important yet. Ignatas was very nice with my mother, since he gave her a pic of his, a pic of Marcel Wyss and also a big poster of the team as a present. Then he signed his own picture. How nice!

Another nice rider was Silence-Lotto's Francis De Greef. He probably had to face the anti-doping after the race, so he arrived in the bus zone when his team bus had already left. He started to look for his shoes inside the team car, while his DS made a sign towards my family and I. We were the only supporters left in the area and the DS had a water bottle that he didn't need anymore. Therefore, he gave it to us. When I got the water bottle, I also asked Francis (a young and promising rider who did very well in that year's Giro) for an autograph and he really seemed surprised and pleased in that moment.

Amongst the last riders to arrive in the bus area, there was also Mark Cavendish, the stage winner.
We supporters (there were just 6 people waiting for the British rider) congratulated him on his victory and then one boy told him, "I'm your friend on Facebook!". Cav looked a bit thoughtful and surprised, then he said (In Italian), "No io. E'...American." ("It's not me. That guy is an American"). Then he agreed to take a picture with us supporters.

Then, while we were walking away from the bus area, we had a final surprise: in fact we saw Basso, riding fast towards us. The other supporters called him and he stopped to talk with them in a very kind and polite way. He signed autographs, accepted congratulations, had some photos taken and then he rode away, apologizing to us (!) for being in a terrible hurry. So, this was my experience at the Milan stage of Giro 2009, the infamous 'strike stage' of the Giro del Centenario. Supporters were said to be extremely angry at the riders but personally, I don't think that that day was a complete waste of time. OK, the race wasn't that exciting, but during it I could recognize many riders. Moreover, I could witness such a rare episode live. And then at the start and at the end of the stage, the riders were really kind with the supporters and they paid us back for our patience.

Here is the Top 10 of that stage and the general classification as it stood after the first 9 stages of the 2009 Giro:
Top 10:
1. Mark Cavendish
2. Allan Davis
3. Tyler Farrar
4. Matthew Brandt
5. Alessandro Petacchi
6. Robert Foerster
7. Robbie Hunter
8. Davide Viganò
9. Said Haddou
10. Thomas Fothen

General classification after 9 stages:
1. Danilo Di Luca
2. Thomas Lovkvist
3. Michael Rogers
4. Levi Leipheimer
5. Denis Menchov
6. Ivan Basso
7. Carlos Sastre
8. Christopher Horner
9. Franco Pellizotti
10. David Arroyo

Written by Fede