[ire]

Have you guys been following this story on velonews.com? Its pretty interesting, I'll post the first two parts here
Part 1
Part 2

 

[ire]

How do you define an epic? It’s a noun grossly over-used by sportswriters, particularly those who write about cycling. Through the years, European journalists have described heroic deeds by brave athletes on bicycles with gushing prose that was rarely deserved. They even titled road racing’s formative years The Heroic Era.

Admittedly, in the long decades before live radio and television commentary brought reality to the grand tours and classics, cycling fans only learned about races through the written word. And journalists depended on selling newspapers to make a living. The better the story, the higher the sales. It’s no wonder they turned ordinary performances into extraordinary feats.

On reflection, were the daylong slogs through blinding rainstorms on muddy roads any more heroic than what miners did in their everyday jobs at the coalface? How meaningful was, say, Tour de France contender Eugène Christophe’s carrying his heavy steel bike down the Col du Tourmalet and repairing the forks at a blacksmith’s forge? Or did the survivors of “epic” editions in Paris-Roubaix really deserve the lavish praise heaped upon them by an adoring media?

That’s not to say that the riders who excelled in harsh conditions were not deserving of their recognition as exceptional individuals. But a true sports epic is one in which, besides having to battle the elements, the contestants go to the limit of their physical and mental capacities while still competing for the victory in a major competition. All of those ingredients came together on June 5, 1988 on stage 14 of the 1988 Giro d’Italia.

That morning, the 7-Eleven team directeur sportif Mike Neel awoke early in Chiesa Valmalenco, heard rain pouring on the roof of his hotel, and instinctively thought: “cold weather gear.” He made all his riders, including team leader Andy Hampsten, grease up with Vaseline. Neel and team manager Jim Ochowicz then worked out a system of getting hot drinks and dry clothes to their racers on the main obstacle of the day, the 8600-foot Passo di Gavia, where reports indicated a foot of fresh snow had fallen overnight.

Road crews were still plowing a passage for the race when the peloton began climbing the old mountain pass, mostly on dirt, which the day’s rain was turning to mud. As the road narrowed, and began to steepen with two switchback turns, Dutch rider Johan Van der Velde jumped out of the pack.

Wearing only an undervest, bib shorts and a short-sleeved purple jersey as the Giro’s points leader, Van der Velde caught an earlier break and quickly pulled away as the tarmac turned to dirt.

At the same point Hampsten dashed clear of the diminishing peloton, chased by Dutchman Erik Breukink and Italian Franco Chioccioli, the race leader. Hampsten — who said he prepared for this climb on the dirt roads climbing into the Colorado Rockies from his Boulder home — looked comfortable on the muddy surface, calmly spinning his bottom gear of 39x25.

In contrast, an inspired yet seemingly foolhardy Van der Velde was frequently dancing on the pedals, battling heavy rain that turned to snow about 6km from the summit.
The wet, heavy snow was being blown into the riders’ faces by a fierce crosswind as they struggled on the frequent sections of 16-percent grade. It was impossible to stay warm. But the bare-armed Van der Velde still rode strongly in the final, paved kilometers of the Gavia.

Standing with a French colleague near the mountaintop, I saw Van der Velde emerge through the horizontally driven snow about 30 seconds before Hampsten — who stopped to put on a waterproof jacket and wool balaclava to go with the neoprene gloves he already had on. Breukink overtook Hampsten while he was stopped, but the American soon made up for lost time.

THE DESCENT

The American quickly took command on the long downhill to Bormio, back on dirt roads. “I knew the descent would be the race,” he said.

Within a kilometer, Hampsten had passed Van der Velde, who had came to a slow-motion halt, unable to move. Team helpers stripped the tall, gaunt Dutchman of his ice-stiffened clothing and carried him into their team car. After being revived with hot drinks and the car’s heater, Van der Velde eventually continued … and finished the stage almost 47 minutes in arrears.

Plowing a lone furrow through the snow-covered mud and rocks, Hampsten was concentrating on survival, not the race, while Breukink gamely followed 20 seconds or so behind — although none of us was quite sure where anyone was in the whiteout conditions.

So devastating was the freezing snow that former Giro champions Roberto Visentini and Giuseppe Saronni were reduced to tears of pain. We watched Visentini coasting downhill like a rag doll at a quarter the speed he would normally descend. He stopped three times, once to don a padded ski jacket, another to drink hot tea, and then to have his frozen muscles rubbed back to life.

Hampsten raced alone through the blizzard as if in a trance, ahead of the race vehicles and guiding himself by the tornante (“sharp bend&#8221 signs that appeared through the foggy mist. He was unbearably cold and told me the next day, “On one of the hairpins in the snow I looked down at my legs. I knew they were going around and stung a bit, which I knew was good. They weren’t totally numb; I made sure I kept spinning. But they were bright red and they had chunks of ice everywhere. Just that one glance terrified me. I’d never seen my body look like that and I refused to look down after that.”

When the snow turned back to rain in the valley Hampsten was brought back to reality by the arrival of police motorcycles and the race’s director’s car. He had another shock when Breukink shot past him about 6km from the finish.

The blond Dutchman hung on to win he stage by seven seconds, while Hampsten created history by becoming the first American to don the Giro leader’s pink jersey. The stage’s third finisher was almost five minutes back; future Tour de France champion Pedro Delgado arrived seven minutes down; and the distressed Visentini lost more than half an hour.

The 7-Eleven team’s efforts to get dry clothing to the riders paid off. Besides Hampsten in second on the stage, Bob Roll was 24th, Raúl Alcalá 26th, Dag-Otto Lauritzen 41st and Jeff Pierce 43rd. There were 143 finishers, all of them heroes.

Despite the team’s precautions, Roll was suffering from hypothermia at the finish, his heart rate a dangerous 27 beats a minute. He was carried into the team car, with an ambulance standing by. But he gradually came around in the warmth of the team’s hotel.

Hampsten, too, was shivering when he was awarded the mythic maglia rosa. The emotion was all too much. He returned to his team car and began to sob uncontrollably.
It was an epic the likes of which we’ll probably never witness again.

...........

 

[ire]

When Andy Hampsten survived the snowstorm over the Passo di Gavia at the 1988 Giro d’Italia and took over the maglia rosa (see Hampsten and the 1988 Pink Jersey: Part 1) the battle to become the first American to win the world’s second most prestigious grand tour was far from over. There were still seven days to go, including two time trials and four mountain stages, before the finish in Vittorio Veneto.

The traumatic stage 14 over the Gavia blew the race apart, and everyone was glad to get into bed that night in the little alpine town of Bormio, particularly the riders who had suffered hypothermia, including Hampsten’s 7-Eleven teammate Bob Roll.

Hampsten was reluctant to talk about his dramatic experiences on the Gavia that evening, so I went to interview him in his hotel room the next morning. After describing in detail the epic day, he ended by saying, “After the race I was just an emotional ruin. I went up to the podium to try to do the TV interview and I just left. I couldn’t handle it. I went back to the car and hyperventilated — the car was nice and hot — and sat there. Emotionally, I was on fire. I cried. I dried myself off a little and put on some more clothes. And after 10 minutes I was okay.”

Following the interview, we chatted about what would be his first day wearing the pink jersey. There was the prospect of another snow-ravaged stage. The highest mountain pass in Italy, the 9,035-foot Stelvio, was on the menu followed by a summit finish at the ski station of Merano 2000.

Although most of the race favorites were now five or minutes behind leader Hampsten, the race was far from over. Hampsten was separated from second-place Erik Breukink — the blond Dutchman who won the stage into Bormio — by only 15 seconds, and Swiss challenger Urs Zimmerman (third-place finisher at the 1986 Tour de France) was just over four minutes in arrears. Also lurking were two of the Giro’s earlier race leaders, the Toshiba team’s Frenchman Jean-François Bernard (third at the 1987 Tour) and Del Tongo-Colnago’s Italian Franco Chioccioli, along with his teammate Flavio Giupponi.

While Hampsten would have the support of only six 7-Eleven-Hoonved teammates (Dane Jens Veggerby and American Roy Knickman had dropped out earlier in the three-week race), Breukink had the backing of the reigning World Cup champion Panasonic-Isostar team, while Zimmerman led Carrera, the top Italian team. It was going to be a tough fight to defend the jersey.

MORE STORMY WEATHER

The wet, cold weather continued, with snow above 6,000 feet elevation. Fortunately for Hampsten and the Giro’s other 142 survivors, snowdrifts had closed the Stelvio and they would be taken by car on a loop through Switzerland to the other side of the mountain.

With a rearranged start at Spondigna, stage 15 would be just 83km long, most of it downhill or flat before the difficult 15km climb to the finish. 7-Eleven team director Mike Neel said he “ordered the team to ride tempo to make sure everyone arrived at Merano together before the climb. We may have ridden too fast, but it made sure that Andy would not get attacked before the climb.”

As soon as the road tilted up past alpine meadows soaked by the storm, Bernard accelerated. Zimmermann and Chioccioli followed him, while Hampsten decided to remain with Breukink and Giupponi 200 meters behind. Bernard — who lost nine minutes over the Gavia the day before — would drop his two shadows and take his third stage win of the race.

In the battle for pink, Breukink managed to stay with Hampsten until 9km from the top, when the American’s relentless pace proved too much, but the Dutch rider did well to concede only 27 seconds by the finish.

“It was a tough climb,” Hampsten noted. “Breukink rode very well. I think we were both tired from yesterday.” Asked for his opinion on the two leaders, Bernard said, “Hampsten is the clear favorite now. He is stronger than Breukink on the climbs and he’ll be able to match him in the last time trial.”

Memories of the snowy Gavia were still haunting the peloton at the start in Merano of stage 16, which was due to take the pack over the giant 8,232-foot Rombo Pass into Austria. Some riders even wanted the race neutralized when persistent rain turned to snow as they climbed into the clouds. The pack came to a halt in a tunnel.

While officials argued with the protest’s ringleaders, Hampsten sat calmly in his warm team car. But he had to scramble back to his bike when, without warning, the race was on again. The slow, bizarre ascent of the Rombo, with its two “protest” halts, took two hours and lulled many into a false sense of security. But then all hell broke loose.

Just before the summit, where some stopped to don extra clothing for the long descent, the Panasonic team’s Urs Freuler and Peter Winnen triggered a surprise attack. Suddenly, there was a lead group of 15 zooming downhill past ski slopes into Austria. Hampsten and Norwegian teammate Dag-Otto Lauritzen were safely in the breakaway, but not Zimmermann, Giupponi, Chioccioli and Bernard.

The move was a big danger to them, but was also a potential threat to Hampsten because Breukink had no fewer than six teammates to help him at the front. Perhaps they would isolate the race leader and then try to spring Breukink loose before the stage finish.

The situation became clearer in the valley, where the snow and rain gave way to warmer, brighter conditions. The break gained two minutes before Zimmermann, Bernard, Chioccioli and nine others organized a pursuit. Such was the intensity of their effort — the chasers only caught the break in the final few kilometers — that the 126km between the Rombo summit and the Innsbruck finish were raced at a crazy 49.4 kph.

Hampsten managed to keep his 42-second lead over Breukink on that stage, and on the following one back across the border into Italy. The American had gotten a glimpse of the hard work expected of his team to keep the maglia rosa. But all the pressure would be on Hampsten for stage 18, an individual 18km mountain time trial from Levico Terme up to Vetriolo.

......................

 

[maddog17]

the weird thing about that story is i always thought that Hampsten won that stage. not that i'm unhappy to learn Breukink (sp) won it, he was one of my favorite riders. part of the reason why i bought my Concorde in PDM colors

 

[ire]

the weird thing about that story is i always thought that Hampsten won that stage. not that i'm unhappy to learn Breukink (sp) won it, he was one of my favorite riders. part of the reason why i bought my Concorde in PDM colors

The whole story is new to me.....I knew Hampsten one the Giro, but I didn't even know what year. That stage sounds epic, sounds like everyone was in survival mode

 

[splat]

the weird thing about that story is i always thought that Hampsten won that stage. not that i'm unhappy to learn Breukink (sp) won it, he was one of my favorite riders. part of the reason why i bought my Concorde in PDM colors

I also though Hampsten was first over the pass.

 

[maddog17]

i'd like to see the video if it exists. that just sounds so crazy, or if i ever get the chance, talk to Bobke about it.

 

[ire]

i'd like to see the video if it exists. that just sounds so crazy, or if i ever get the chance, talk to Bobke about it.

send him an email during the Tour Maybe they'll read your question on the air!

 

[Kihaji]

send him an email during the Tour Maybe they'll read your question on the air!

Dear Bobke,

Is there a video of the year when Hampsten one the Giro and you froze your harblz?

Sincerely,
Ridemonkey.

 

[splat]

Dear Bobke,

Is there a video of the year when Hampsten one the Giro and you froze your harblz?

Sincerely,
Ridemonkey.

thats the kind of question he just might answear

 

[Wumpus]

You should ask Bobke to translate.

 

[ire]

you kick a$$ Wumpus

 

[ire]

and here is part 3, one more later this week

If there were any doubts that Andy Hampsten was entitled to the 1988 Giro’s pink jersey, they would be exposed on the crucial stage 18, an individual 18km mountain time trial from Levico Terme up to the ski station of Vetriolo Terme. With Frenchman Jean-François Bernard out of the race because of a crash the previous day, the logical favorites for the stage win were the other top climber/time trialists: Hampsten, Erik Breukink, Urs Zimmermann and Roberto Visentini.

There was enormous pressure on race leader Hampsten and his Dutch challenger, Breukink, who were separated by only 42 seconds on overall time. Whoever came out on top on this stage would be in great position to win the Giro.

The battle of nerves between the two was accentuated by their sharing the same hotel in Levico — seeing each other at dinner and breakfast, and knowing what each other was thinking and doing. “The pressure even got to me,” said the 7-Eleven-Hoonved team director Mike Neel, who was looking after Hampsten in the long hours leading up to his time trial late in the day.

“I started freaking out, and I had to go and lie down in my bedroom at 1 in the afternoon. I was shaking, as if I was on drugs,” Neel continued. “But Andy was very calm. After riding up the hill in the morning he went to his room, reading a book and listening to music. And when we reached the start we parked in a shady back street, and Andy warmed up on the rollers. He was super calm — but as soon as the race started he came alive.”

The 7-Eleven team had prepared things to perfection. After inspecting the course, Hampsten chose chainrings of 53 and 42 (instead of the usual 39-tooth inner ring), and an eight-speed freewheel 13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21. Hampsten also followed his Italian team doctor Massimo Testa’s advice for the time trial, keeping his heart rate at 180 beats per minute (this race pre-dated power meters), and riding with a calm intensity that he had rarely displayed before.

The opening 5km was on flat streets in Levico before the course turned right and headed up the mountain. It climbs through 3,055 vertical feet in 11.2km, averaging 8.4 percent, via a dozen switchbacks. Hampsten started strongly and was already four seconds faster than Breukink before starting the main climb. The lean American then continued to gain time on his main rival. Halfway up the hill he was 16 seconds ahead of Breukink … and when he sprinted in a 53x16 gear along the flattish finishing straight the time gap was an impressive 1:04.

Not only did he crush Breukink but Hampsten also won the stage in 43:37 to beat a host of the world’s best climbers: 1986 Giro winner Visentini was second, at 0:32; Zimmermann was fourth at 0:52; future Giro and Vuelta a España champ Tony Rominger was sixth, at 1:39 and that year’s Tour de France winner Pedro Delgado was seventh, at 1:55.

After crossing the line, the exhausted Hampsten quickly braked to a halt and sat down on the side of the ride — no team buses in those days! With his back against a metal crowd barrier, he was soon surrounded by photographers, TV cameramen and reporters. His eyes were still glazed over from his huge effort.

“I hurt so bad it was like a meditation,” the cerebral Hampsten told his astonished audience. “I knew I was winning because Mike was telling me, but I wasn’t conscious of the fact.”

It was a brilliant effort, probably the hardest of his life, and perhaps an even greater athletic feat than taking the maglia rosa over the Gavia four days earlier. Overall, Hampsten was now 2:06 ahead of Breukink, and 5:10 clear of third-place Zimmermann. After the stage, a humbled Breukink said, “The Giro is now over for me. Hampsten is too strong.”

But the 1988 Giro was far from over.

Despite his resounding time-trial victory, Hampsten (and his modest 7-Eleven team) still had to survive another mountain stage, two flat stages and a closing time trial. Breukink may have conceded the victory, but Swiss all-rounder Zimmermann, co-leader of the mighty Carrera Jeans team with Visentini, was not giving up.

It was a warm, sunny day in the Dolomites when the peloton reached the first of stage 19’s three climbs, the Passo Duran, which climbs 3,300 feet in 13km on a narrow, twisting road — much of it on dirt because of road construction. There were still 140km to race from the Duran summit to the finish of the 233km stage in Arta Terme, so when Zimmermann made a sharp solo attack on a 14-percent grade at the start of the climb, the danger seemed minimal.

“I could have followed Zimmi when he attacked, but I didn’t think there was a big danger with so far to go,” said Hampsten, who later admitted, “My first mistake was to underestimate the climbs. They were much harder than I thought.”

On cresting the 5,000-foot Duran, the tall, blond Zimmermann was 45 seconds ahead of Hampsten, who was accompanied by just three others, his 7-Eleven teammate Jeff Pierce and two Italian shadows Stefano Giuliani (one of Rominger’s Chateau d’Ax teammates) and Stefano Tomasini (leader of the Fanini team). Breukink was just behind and caught the Hampsten group on the descent.

Also on the descent, Giuliani bridged across to Zimmermann, and the two riders began to eat up the terrain. They reached Pieve di Cadore, with 115km still to race, 4:10 before the Hampsten group, which now contained six riders with the addition of Italy’s Roberto Conti and Frenchman Dominique Arnauld. Another small chase group, which included 7-Eleven men Bob Roll, Ron Kiefel and Raúl Alcalá, came through town 6:45 back.

The situation had become critical when Pierce led the six chasers onto the first slopes of the winding, wooded Passo di Mauria, with 73km still to race. The gaps had grown to 5:30 and 7:30, making Zimmermann the virtual race leader. It was at that moment that Hampsten and Neel made a huge decision.

“I spoke with Mike,” Hampsten said, “and we decided that we might lose two minutes by waiting for the next group, but we would gain more later.”

The decision for Hampsten and Pierce to slow down and wait for their three teammates was one made without panic, when the pressure was at its most intense. This is when grand tours are won or lost.

By the Mauria summit, the group with Alcalá, Kiefel and Roll was only 30 seconds behind the awaiting Hampsten, and the two groups merged midway down the long descent. But the gap to Zimmermann was now over seven minutes. Had 7-Eleven made the right decision?

The narrow, winding roads, sheltered from the wind by tall pine trees, gave an advantage to Zimmerman and his audacious escape. Giuliani was having to race flat out just to stay on the Swiss rider’s wheel. For another 30km, Zimmermann clung to his lead, and with only 20km left to race he was still in the virtual pink jersey, with a 5:36 lead over a now 50-strong chase group.

The situation was still touch and go though, because Hampsten’s four 7-Eleven teammates had been doing virtually all the work for more than three hours under the hot sun. And the four Carrera riders in the pack were doing their best to slow down the chase for teammate Zimmermann by soft-pedaling whenever they went to the front.

Fortunately for Hampsten, Breukink’s Panasonic team saw that its leader’s second overall place was threatened and they finally agreed to help 7-Eleven. As the gap slowly closed, Hampsten himself took charge of the pursuit in the closing, slightly uphill kilometers.

Even so, more than three minutes elapsed after Giuliani took the stage win before the Hampsten group arrived in the little town of Arta Terme. The American had saved his pink jersey, but Zimmermann was up to second place, only 1:49 down, and his specialty, a flat time trial, still remained.

 

[ire]

here is part 4

Andy Hampsten and his 7-Eleven-Hoonved team appeared to have everything under control before the 1988 Giro d’Italia’s final stage, a long time trial on a rolling circuit at Vittorio Veneto. The American climber, 26, enjoyed a spaghetti lunch after a short morning stage and then rested in his room prior to the Giro’s ultimate challenge.

One concern was that the 73km road stage into Vittorio Veneto was won by a Swiss named Urs. This was Urs Freuler from the Panasonic team, who took the stage in a mass sprint finish. Did this portend a happy ending in the afternoon for another Swiss named Urs? Unlike Hampsten, Urs Zimmerman of the Carrera Jeans squad was a time-trial specialist, and he needed to beat the American by 1:50 over the 43km TT to stop Hampsten from becoming the first American to win the Giro.

Hampsten’s 7-Eleven team director Mike Neel had driven up from the Venice coast the night before to make a full inspection of the course. He told his team leader that it was a fast and fair challenge, except for a dangerous downhill turn, 18km into the stage. However, the real danger came from another source: the massive black storm clouds that were gathering over the Venetian vineyards on that hot, humid afternoon. And with only two minutes covering the first three riders on GC — the Gavia stage winner Erik Breukink was in third — any mistake by Hampsten could prove costly.

Race leader Hampsten, the last of the race’s 125 survivors to start the time trial, began well. After 10km, nearing the top of the third of three short hills, he was a few seconds faster than Zimmermann and a few seconds slower than Breukink. Just then the skies opened, and torrential rain began to fall amid forked lightning,
Advertisement

The thunder claps were as loud as the cannons used at the Battle of Vittorio Veneto, where the Austro-Hungarian Empire met its demise at the hands of allied forces at the end of World War I in November 1918. Seventy years later, a battle of a different kind was raging in the hills above the Piave Valley.

Breukink made it safely down the winding descent at 18km. But fourth-placed Flavio Giupponi, leader of the Del Tongo team, didn’t have the same luck. His front disc wheel slid out, he careened onto the slick, black asphalt and skidded head first into a deep ditch, his bike still locked to his feet.

Three minutes later, runner-up Zimmermann appeared, anxiously coasting around the same sharp turn. He, too, went crashing off the pavement and slid onto the soggy grass hillside. His team mechanic ran to help him to his feet and pushed him back into action.

“I heard on the race radio that Zimmermann had crashed,” said Neel, who was following Hampsten in the 7-Eleven team car. “So I screamed at Andy, ‘Slow down! Slippery!’”

Hampsten heeded the warning, “I slowed down,” he said later, “but I still slid out. It was like being on ice.” The American made it around the long curve without falling, but only just. One factor that probably saved him from potential disaster was the fact that he used a spoked front wheel. The riders who fell, it seemed, couldn’t control their front discs in the strong wind gusts.

At the next time split, 5km after the crash scene, Hampsten had dropped to 19 seconds behind Breukink, while Zimmermann’s troubles had dropped him 25 seconds behind Hampsten. The maglia rosa looking a little safer, but with the rain still falling there were still some anxious looks on the faces of Hampsten’s support crew.

Fortunately, the second half of the TT course was flat and straightforward, and the skinny guy in the pink skinsuit was soon racing beneath the ancient, narrow stone archway back into the heart of Vittorio Veneto. Even though Hampsten had conceded two minutes to the stage winner, Lech Piasecki of Poland, who raced in perfect conditions two hours earlier, the race leader lost just 23 seconds to Breukink — who thus snatched second place overall from Zimmermann.

So that’s how Andy Hampsten, born in Columbus, Ohio, on April 7, 1962, raised in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and now a resident of Boulder, Colorado, became the first (and still only) non-European cyclist to win the Giro d’Italia (along with the King of the Mountains title).

CELEBRATIONS
But that’s not the end of our story.

Right after Hampsten pulled on the winner’s pink jersey, he and his 7-Eleven teammates piled into their team cars and headed west on the autostrada. They had reserved tables for dinner at the Bar Augusto at Villa d’Alme, just outside Bergamo. It was a joyful three-hour drive for the riders and their entourage.

But why drive so far to celebrate? I would find out when I arrived at the Italian hostelry on that damp, dark night.

On the outside, the stucco-walled Bar Augusto is an austere modern building. Inside, its cavernous reception room is brought to life by hundreds of framed, historic bike-racing jerseys that hang from the walls in glass cases. There’s even the maglia rosa worn by the legendary Fausto Coppi during his sensational debut Giro victory in 1940.

The Bar Augusto has a strong connection with American cycling as this is where the U.S. national amateur team would stay when they were racing in northern Italy in the early-1980s. When most of those national team members turned pro for 7-Eleven after the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, the Bar Augusto became the team’s adopted home. Naturally, this is where the team would gather after important races either to celebrate a new victory or commiserate with each other after less successful outings.

When I arrived there on June 12, 1988, the riders on 7-Eleven’s Giro team were already there, along with the personnel, including team founder and general manager Jim Ochowicz, directeur sportif Neel and team doctor Massimo Testa. Also there was a rotund, balding industrialist (and bike racing fan), Erminio Dell’Oglio, whose Hoonved washing machine company co-sponsored the team when they raced in Europe.

The tall, loquacious Neel — who speaks fluent Italian learned during his own pro racing days in Italy — had become something of a celebrity in the previous three weeks, answering questions about race tactics and U.S. cycling, and translating for his riders on Italian TV shows every day. People were saying that it was Neel’s presence that helped the 7-Eleven team earn respect so quickly in its quest for glory in Europe.

Besides the team, dozens of local supporters came to the Bar Augusto that night, to re-live the 71st Giro through the words of its winner and his colleagues. The eating, drinking and celebrating would continue until 1 in the morning.

The riders talked about Hampsten’s triumph in the snowstorm over the Passo Gavia, when he emerged with the pink jersey. “Terribile, ma bella” (“Terrifying, but beautiful”), said Dell’Oglio, with a Cheshire Cat grin.

They discussed Hampsten’s brilliant win in the Vetriolo stage’s hill climb. “At the finish of the time trial, I was apologizing to my body and thanking it at the same time,” Hampsten recalled.

They also spoke about their nail-biting three-hour chase when Zimmermann threatened to grab the maglia rosa on the last stage in the Dolomites. And the fans congratulated all the riders on the Giro team: the six finishers Hampsten (1st), Raúl Alcalá (14th), Jeff Pierce (46th), Bob Roll (61st), Ron Kiefel (62nd) and Davis Phinney (118th), and the three non-finishers Roy Knickman, Dag-Otto Lauritzen and Jens Veggerby.

Amid the popping of the Champagne corks and the flashlights of the photographers, Hampsten moved from group to group in the Bar Augusto, thanking them for their efforts and support. He seemed overcome.

“I’m in a daze,” Hampsten admitted to me. “I set out from the start [of the Giro] wanting to be in there, fighting for the win. But I didn’t know whether I could win.

“Now that I have won the Giro, I’ve proved that my methods have been right. I don’t mean to sound self-centered because [the win] has also proved the 7-Eleven team’s methods to be right. I couldn’t have done this without the team. Everyone worked so amazingly hard.”

At the end of the long night, after the tensions of the long day, one final ceremony remained to be enacted. Not far from the slightly faded maglia rosa worn by Fausto Coppi a half-century before, a sparkling new pink jersey was suspended on a hanger from the ceiling. The signature hastily scribbled on it was that of one exhausted, but happy American: Andy Hampsten.

(This is the final part of retelling the story of Andy Hampsten’s dramatic defense of the 1988 Giro’s pink jersey.)