It's giro time! 4th maggio 2012

It's giro time! 4th maggio 2012

The time has arrived - the first, and hardest, of the big three grand tours - the Giro D'Italia starts tomorrow. Unusually it starts in Denmark spending a few days there before heading back to Italy to complete the three week battle through the hells of tough roads in Italy.

It really captures the life and soul of the Italian cyclists and brings normal people into grand emotion. The quest for the Maglia Rosa began in 1909 as an advert for La Gazzetta della Sport - the big daily sports paper in Italy, and also the only one which I can just about understand a little of. Very similar this to the Tour de France which also started to advertise a French newspaper.

Others can write much better than I so I will not try to, rather I will just say that it is wonderful to see how much the nation is captured by this race.

In fact this week there has been a sad presentation. Last year's "winner" Alberto Contador was finally declared guilty of doping and had last year's victory taken away from him and so the Maglia Rossa was given to Michele Scarponi. Terrible state of affairs, and something that still plagues cycling. Nightmare. In better news, Team Sky are still doing well, in fact, Bradley Wiggins won the Tour of Romandie to add to the Paris-Nice and now Team Sky have extended their sponsorship of this and also Team GB. Great news for British cycling. And cue the pin up boys and girls getting a photo done.

And a cheeky picture of my bike, abbastanza fully specced up!

In other sporting Italian news - it is coming to the end of a very eventful season in Serie A. It looks as if AC Siena will stay in the top league which is a real achievement although Siena are now afraid that they will now lose their coach, like they did the last time the did well. The coach is entertaining and would be a great loss. Giuseppe Sannino is a bundle of energy and really lights up the touchline of a very boring crowd.

I believe it is now 14 of the 20 coaches who started in Serie A this season that have moved on. Incredible. The latest, and funniest for the Sienese is the departure of the coach of huge local rivals Fiorentina this week. Delio Rossi was sacked after repeatedly punching one of his players who gave him grief after being substituted earlier in the week. Fiorentina used to be a force in European football but are on the slide and in danger of relegation at this moment. The disappointing this for me is that I fully the coach's actions - the player is clearly a twunt and he was taking appropriate action, but as ever the football players get a ridiculous amount of protection.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/european/fiorentina-coach-delio-rossi-sacked-for-attacking-own-player-7712310.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqL668z9gk8

And this a week after the Genoa manager was sacked after the players had a girlie strop on the pitch, one of them starting crying and them taking off their shirts stating that they were not fit to wear them. Of course this was more amusing as it came during a 1-4 home defeat to Siena, that the fans threw firewworks onto the pitch causing delays in the game for 45 minutes, and finally that the manager had already been sacked once this season, and then re-hired after the second manager was let go. Only in Italy!!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/sportvideo/footballvideo/9220745/Genoa-manager-Alberto-Malesani-sacked-after-players-remove-shirts-during-protest-filled-4-1-defeat-to-Siena.html

And this comes after a recent arrest due to match fixing of a Bari player who admitted scoring an own goal on purpose last season, to get some betting money.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17596140

A couple of my favourite recent words of the week in Italian:

http://gemellipress.com/italian-word-of-the-week-furbo/

Can mean cunning e.g. "Furbo come una volpa" - "as cunning as a fox"

http://gemellipress.com/italian-word-of-the-week-trucco/

Can mean trick e.g. "Dov'e il trucco?" - "Where's the catch?"


And finally, Berlusconi's many court cases roll on and on. Now he is trying to claim that the infamous Bunga Bunga parties were just Burlesque parties! In bocca al lupo, cazzo!


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/silvio-berlusconi/9216813/Silvio-Berlusconi-says-Bunga-Bunga-parties-were-burlesque-contests.html

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/25/berlusconi-escapes-corruption-conviction-what-he-faces-next.html