2015 Giro d'Italia Stage 4 Live Coverage
Welcome to our live coverage of Stage 4 of the 2015 Giro d'Italia! Our live profile and commentary are below, followed by a preview of the technical aspects of the route.
Course Preview
After leaving the coastal town of Chiavari, Stage 4's lumpy route takes a turn south. Three KOMs are on tap, the first at Colla del Velva, second at Passo del Termine and the last at Biassa before finishing in La Spezia. Because of the its testing terrain, it is difficult to predict how a stage like this will shake out. Can a breakaway stay away? Or will the flat finish favor the stronger sprinters?
Laghi said this stage might look easy, but the reality is quite different.
“It’s a bit like the previous day’s stage, only harder still,” he said. "It’s a difficult one to call because there are so many tough little climbs,” Laghi said. “If someone loses a wheel at the wrong time it could split up, and that nature of it means it can happen at any time.”
“So my guess is that you’re going to have a really good race, with a group of less than 50 coming in. It could even be that it gets whittled down to 20 or so. It’s interesting because it means that the favorites won’t be able to arrive at the Giro and ride themselves into shape. If they’re not at their best they could easily get caught out here…”
Moment in time
The 1978 Giro presaged a dramatic era in Italian cycling, but was overshadowed by a national tragedy. On 16 March Aldo Moro, Italy’s most urbane politician, was kidnapped by the Red Brigades.\nThat previous year Francesco Moser won the World Championship. Immensely strong and likeable, Moser had become the leading light in Italian cycling. He began the 1978 Giro as red-hot favorite, but he’d need to reckon with a new reality.
1977 had seen the debut of ’Beppe Saronni, a rapier-quick, cocksure 19-year-old from Milan. He’d been runner-up at Flèche Wallonne, and winner of four Italian semi classics and the Tour of Sicily. While the rest of the Italian gruppo bent to Moser’s iron will, Saronni loved nothing more than to rub him up the wrong way. Giro director Vincenzo Torriani declaimed, “Even Merckx wasn’t this good at his age.”
By the time the Giro came round, their mutual antagonism was palpable. Stage 2, a lumpy 195km hike from Novi Ligure to La Spezia, saw them go hammer and tongs. However, as Saronni blasted gleefully home to his first Giro stage win, the news all of Italy had dreaded finally broke: Aldo Moro, the voice of reason amid the political maelstrom that was 1970s Italy, had been murdered by the Red Brigades.\n
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