Giro d’Italia, along with Tour de France and Spanish Vuelta, is the world’s most prestigious professional cycling race, something like the Grand Slam in tennis.
This time the Italian event started in Nice, France with a seven kilometer individual start race. The prologue brought victory to Alex Zulle, a well-known Swiss cyclist who pulled ahead of Cantina’s Serhiy Honchar from Rivne by just one second. But after the third 196 km lap (Rapallo — Forte dei Marmi) the Ukrainian athlete emerged wearing the leader’s pink T-shirt. He finished in the main group, leaving his principal rival behind.
This is probably the first time that a Ukrainian cyclist took the lead in such a prestigious event. After three laps and prologue Honchar clocked 12 hours 41 min. 32 sec. The Italian Michele Bartoli is 9 and the Swiss Zule 12 seconds behind.
It is hard to say whether Serhiy will find it in himself to win in the end. Among his rivals, besides Bartoli and Zule, are Ivan Gotti and Marco Pantani (Italy), Luc Leblan (France), Pavel Tonkov and Petr Ugriumov (Russia). Much will depend on performance in the next two laps (40 km in Trieste, May 31, and 34 km in Lugano, June 6).
AP Photo:
Serhiy Honchar: “For these kisses it was worth going 196 kilometers”







