Stefano Garzelli

Stefano Garzelli (born 16 July 1973) is an Italian former professional road racing cyclist, who competed as a professional between 1997 and 2013. The high point of his career was his overall win in the 2000 Giro d'Italia, after a close three-way competition with Gilberto Simoni and Francesco Casagrande.

Career
Born in Varese, Garzelli started out as being a domestique for Marco Pantani but proved in 2000 that he deserved much more. When "The Pirate" lacked form in the beginning of the 2000 Giro, Garzelli was left free of all team duties for, and was able to fight and win his own battle in the Giro. In the final time-trial stage Garzelli took the race leadership away from Casagrande, who was suffering an inflamed sciatic nerve. Casagrande was devastated, and Garzelli dedicated his win to Pantani.

He was a versatile rider with qualities that included decent sprinting, decent time trials and some good skills in the mountains. Without being a great attacker, Garzelli was very constant and, on a good day, he could go with the best climbers.

After his win of the 2000 Giro d'Italia he was recruited by the Italian super-team in 2001, aiming to repeat his 2000 Giro success. The start of the season showed promise, with Garzelli being a key player in teammate Paolo Bettini's win in Liège–Bastogne–Liège, with Garzelli himself finishing second. The finale of the race saw Bettini and Garzelli make tactical moves to benefit from each other's attacks and saw them finish the race with a comfortable margin to decide the win amongst themselves.

However, after already winning two stages at the event, Garzelli was caught in the 2002 doping scandal in the Giro d'Italia, and was forced out of the race. Many believe that the circumstances of his suspension prompted the Mapei boss Giorgio Squinzi to terminate his sponsorship of the team at the end of the year. "The exclusion of Garzelli, who tested positive for a masking agent, wasn't a normal thing. At the start nothing was found. Later, as soon as he won a stage, a forbidden substance came out all of a sudden. That's bizarre," said Squinzi in an interview. In a 2011 interview the Belgian double world champion Freddy Maertens cast doubt on whether Garzelli had deliberately used the steroid masking agent concerned, the diuretic Probenecid, likening it to an incident to the 1974 world championships in which he claimed that his water bottle had been deliberately sabotaged by the soigneur of his rival Eddy Merckx.

Garzelli was able to mount a comeback for the 2003 Giro d'Italia and was able to challenge eventual winner Gilberto Simoni in the race.

In 2006, for the first time since he was a professional, he decided not to race the Giro d'Italia, but instead to prepare for the Classics, training with some of his Liquigas-Bianchi teammates (including Danilo Di Luca, Patrick Calcagni and Stefano Zanini) at high altitude in the region around Toluca, Mexico. He finished sixth in both in his first race of the season, Milan-Torino, and at Milan-San Remo, after an unsuccessful attack on the Cipressa hill. He accumulated placings during the first part of the season, without ever being able to win a race, until Rund um den Henninger-Turm where he bested German sprint specialists Gerald Ciolek, Danilo Hondo and Erik Zabel in a sprint finish.

In December 2012, Garzelli signed a one-year contract with the team for the 2013 season, and retired thereafter.

He now works for RAI the Italian national broadcaster as a summariser on the Cycling programmes covered by RAIsport such as the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France.

Major results

 * 1996
 * 1st Piccolo Giro di Lombardia


 * 1997
 * 8th Overall Tour de Suisse
 * 9th Overall Giro d'Italia


 * 1998
 * 1st Jersey yellow.svg Overall Tour de Suisse
 * 1st Jersey green.svg Points classification
 * 1st Stages 4 & 5
 * 2nd Trofeo Forla de Navarra
 * 3rd Rund um den Henninger Turm
 * 6th Tour de Berne


 * 1999
 * 1st GP Miguel Induráin
 * 1st Stage 3 Tour of the Basque Country
 * 3rd Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
 * 3rd À travers Lausanne
 * 4th Milan–San Remo
 * 5th Overall Settimana Internazionale di Coppi e Bartali
 * 6th Overall Vuelta a Murcia


 * 2000
 * 1st Jersey pink.svg Overall Giro d'Italia
 * 1st Stage 18
 * 1st GP Nobili Rubinetterie
 * Tour de Suisse
 * 1st Jersey pink.svg Mountains classification
 * 1st Stage 8
 * 1st Stage 4 Settimana Lombarda
 * 2nd Grand Prix of Aargau Canton
 * 6th GP Miguel Induráin
 * 7th Milan–San Remo
 * 10th Coppa Ugo Agostoni


 * 2001
 * 1st Stage 5a Tour of the Basque Country
 * 1st Stage 6 Tour de Suisse
 * 5th Overall Giro del Trentino
 * 4th Gran Premio Città di Camaiore
 * 5th Coppa Ugo Agostoni
 * 6th Clásica de San Sebastián
 * 6th GP Industria & Artigianato di Larciano


 * 2002
 * 1st GP Industria & Artigianato di Larciano
 * 2nd Liège–Bastogne–Liège
 * 5th Overall Giro del Trentino
 * 9th Overall Tour of the Basque Country


 * 2003
 * 2nd Overall Giro d'Italia
 * 1st Stages 3 & 7
 * 2nd Overall Giro del Trentino
 * 1st Stage 1


 * 2004
 * 1st Jersey yellow.svg Overall Vuelta a Aragón
 * 1st Stage 2 Tour de Romandie
 * 4th Overall Setmana Catalana
 * 6th Overall Giro d'Italia
 * 1st Stage 19


 * 2005
 * 1st Tre Valli Varesine
 * 1st Jersey green.svg Points classification, Tour de Romandie
 * 2nd Trofeo Melinda
 * 4th Clásica de San Sebastián
 * 6th Giro del Lazio


 * 2006
 * 1st Rund um den Henninger Turm
 * 1st Tre Valli Varesine
 * 1st Trofeo Melinda
 * 1st Stage 4 Tour de Luxembourg
 * 2nd Clásica de San Sebastián
 * 4th GP Miguel Induráin
 * 5th Road race, National Road Championships
 * 5th Giro del Lazio
 * 6th Milano–Torino
 * 7th Milan–San Remo


 * 2007
 * Giro d'Italia
 * 1st Stages 14 & 16
 * 1st Stage 3 Giro del Trentino
 * 1st Stage 2 Tour of Slovenia
 * 4th Coppa Sabatini
 * 7th Overall Vuelta a Murcia
 * 8th Memorial Cimurri


 * 2008
 * 1st Grand Prix de Wallonie
 * 1st Trofeo Melinda
 * Vuelta a Asturias
 * 1st Stages 2a & 3
 * 2nd Overall Giro del Trentino
 * 1st Stages 2 & 4
 * 2nd Overall Vuelta a Murcia
 * 2nd Overall Settimana Internazionale di Coppi e Bartali
 * 3rd Subida al Naranco
 * 3rd Coppa Sabatini
 * 5th Tre Valli Varesine
 * 8th Giro di Lombardia
 * 8th Coppa Bernocchi
 * 10th Overall Vuelta a Burgos
 * 10th Giro del Lazio


 * 2009
 * 2nd Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
 * 2nd Trofeo Melinda
 * 3rd Overall Giro della Provincia di Grosseto
 * 3rd Clásica de Almería
 * 4th Overall Giro del Trentino
 * 5th Overall Giro d'Italia
 * 1st Jersey green.svg Mountains classification
 * 9th Grand Prix de Wallonie
 * 10th Trofeo Laigueglia


 * 2010
 * 1st Jersey blue.svg Overall Tirreno–Adriatico
 * 1st Jersey red.svg Points classification
 * 1st Stage 16 (ITT) Giro d'Italia


 * 2011
 * 1st Jersey green.svg Mountains classification, Giro d'Italia
 * 7th GP Industria & Artigianato di Larciano


 * 2012
 * 4th Tour Méditerranéen
 * 4th Overall Settimana Internazionale di Coppi e Bartali