Just me, but pro-teams are pretty focused on the well-being of their team capitan. I don't think that a team would do something as malicious as make hell for Ivan, just to tire him out for the tour.

Truth be told, I am a little confused about Ivan Basso's claim's that he is going to go for both the Giro and the Tour double. Recently, it has not been in fashion or favour to do this. However, we are to a certain degree entering into a new age in pro cycling - at least when it comes to the Tour De France with the retirement of Lance Armstrong.

It's been commonly thought that it takes too much out of a rider to really have a go at both the Grand Tours in the same year. I am trying to remember the last time their was a double winner, or even when one of the really top riders placing well( top 5) in both in the same season. With the Tour de France really wide open, and Basso, based on past performance one of the clear favourites, one wonders why he's talked about having a real go at the Giro. However, he is Italian, so perhaps he has personal and nationalistic reasons for wanting to win the Giro.

What Basso has going for him is the strength of the CSC team - which is extraorinary this year. They have all the players and personalities to do well in the Grand Tours.

Should be interesting.

Fleck

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

the last 'double winner was Pantani in 1998.

I think a rider like Basso could win both (theoretically). Pro grand tour riders often say that the tour is much more difficult than the giro or the vuelta, and Basso has done very well in the tour. I think if CSC can do most of the work for Basso, and he only has to do a minimum of 'extra effort' to secure the win, it would be very reasonable to recover sufficiently to ride a strong tour (win).

I think the difficulty is in identifying the true threats (like Cunego in 2004), and being able to relax and let the 'posers' have their day in the sun. I would also believe that anyone going for a grand tour win would want to 'make a statement', thereby exerting themself more than necessary.

I guess we'll see in may and july.

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mckenzie

I, too, would be very surprised to see Basso clean up in May and July. For the Italians, the Giro is the most important race of the year, regardless of what others think, so you will have some supermotived "home-courters" who will be giving everything to win the race. Those doing the double will always have that thought in the back of their minds that they have the Tour coming up.

Usually the double-tour winners were the dominant riders of their generation, i.e. Indurain, Hinault, Merckx and they all did it on multiple occasions. Roche had two great battles in '87, but never came close again. Patanti had two great races, but I consider '98 "The lost year" considering everything that happened that year and Patanti's history of drugs use. None of the current crop look to have that kind of ability; then again, Indurain never placed better than 10th before running off five Tour wins in a row.

Lance was very likely the only rider capable of winning both and he chose to give all in the Tour. I suspect he could have won each Giro as well, but would not have had the same dominance a month later in France. Ulrich probably had the talent as well, but talent hasn't done much for him of late.

Chad

How about last year? Mancebo went 4th at Le Tour, then came back and went 3rd in the Vuelta.

The year before that he went 6th at le Tour and 3rd at the Vuelta.