FLORENCE, Italy, 16 May 2005 — American David Zabriskie, of the CSC team, outperformed his team leader Ivan Basso to win the eighth stage of the Giro d’Italia here yesterday, a 45km time trial held from Lamporecchio to here.
Zabriskie finished 17secs ahead of pink jersey contender Basso, with Discovery Channel’s Paolo Savoldelli — the 2002 winner of the race — finishing in third at 44sec.
Italy’s Danilo di Luca, of the Liquigas team, finished in 10th at just over a minute and a half in arrears but his time was good enough for him to retain the race leader’s pink jersey with a slim lead over Basso.
However for reigning champion Damiano Cunego and former two-time winner Gilberto Simoni it proved an unsuccessful day. Both riders — who are with the Lampre-Caffita team and are both hoping to win the race — ceding over a minute to Basso, the big winner of the day.
Zabriskie, a time trial specialist whose job in the three-week Italian epic is to provide support for his team leader Basso, set the early pace for the race against the clock in a time of 58min 31sec.
The time trial featured only one difficulty, a small climb in the first half of the course, the latter half of which was decidedly flat.
Basso, who had lost 30 precious seconds in Saturday’s seventh stage, has done plenty of specific training for this kind of exercise and despite coming up short against his teammate he came up trumps.
Basso had began the day a minute and a half behind Di Luca in the general classification, however his second place finish allowed him to move up to second in the general classification.
It means Basso is now in virtual command of the race, ahead of his four main rivals.
Cunego came in 2min 07sec behind Basso and is now fourth overall at just over a minute in arrears to the Italian, who finished third in the Tour de France last year.
Simoni was even further down in the stage standings and it will now be interesting to see if his Lampre team will ask him to ride for Cunego since the younger Italian is in a better overall position.
The other main contenders for the pink jersey are Savoldelli, and 2000 winner Stefano Garzelli.
