Ivan Basso: “Let’s go for our chances.”

Forget the chronicle of the stage today. Today, after the Cogne stage won by Ciccone we talk about what happened and what will happen: the blue jersey is no longer on Diego Rosa’s shoulders, on the eve of the last rest day and the last week full of mountains and climbs.

Ivan Basso: shall we try to make an analysis?
This is a Giro d’Italia that is not giving anything to anyone, so it’s a Giro where you have to go and look for chances and opportunities: courage is not enough, you also need legs.

And today’s stage?
A war, with the breakaway that went away in exhaustion. I cannot say anything to my team, we tried in every way to catch the breakaway and on two occasions with Fortunato and Rosa we had even managed to hit it. Unfortunately those breakaways didn’t go, while the one where we only had Fetter went. We looked for it, we tried: it was a very complicated stage.

Fortunato in general is far from the leaders. Right to go for the ranking?
Fortu deserved it: not for what he did on the Zoncolan, but for what he did after until the last races before this Giro. He deserved the chance to race with the best, because if a young man like him is not given that chance we will never know where he can go. There is taking a beating and restarting, in a Giro that takes different shapes and changes every day.

And what more will this Giro hold?
For us, five chances to try to win a stage and a lot of mountains to try to take back the blue jersey. There is space, there are kilometers, chances will come: it will be important to go for them and not waste them.

Maurizio Borserini