Damiano Cunego to retire at the end of 2018
Announcement an occasion to look back at the Little Prince's controversial 2004 Giro win
On Thursday, Italian Damiano Cunego of Pro Continental team Nippo-Vini Fantini announced that he would retire at the end of the 2018 season at the age of 37. Bowing out after four-years with a second tier side wasn’t Cunego’s likely fate back in 2004 when he won the Giro d’Italia at the age of 22 while taking four stages, with seemingly plenty of Grand Tour glory on his horizon. The story of that win and his subsequent career is a compelling one.
Cunego won the Junior world championship in 1999. He turned pro with Saeco and raced his first Grand Tour in the 2003 Giro in support of compatriot Gilberto Simoni, who earned his second pink jersey. In the next edition, Simoni was once more Saeco’s captain, but it was clear that Cunego was on sterling form after his Stage 2 victory.
Simoni wore the pink jersey from Stages 3 to 6 after winning Stage 3, but his upstart young teammate’s Stage 7 triumph put him in the race lead. This steamed Simoni. Cunego lost the pink to Sergey Honchar after a long time trial but regained it following his third win on Stage 16. It was in the Giro’s final mountainous week that Cunego kept putting time into his captain.
The tension came to a boil on Stage 18 to Bormio 2000, a 118-km route that included the famed Gavia climb. Simoni put in a solo bid for victory at the foot of the Bormio ascent but Cunego followed a bridging move by Dario Cioni up to Simoni. Cunego kicked before the line and no one could stay with him. The stage victory and time bonus was his. When “Gibo” found Cunego surrounded by journalists, he shouted, “You’re a bastard…you are really stupid.” Simoni was third that year.
In 2005 the two shared the leadership of Lampre-Caffita, but Epstein-Barr disease left Cunego weak and Simoni couldn’t beat winner Paolo Salvodelli. In the era between Marco Pantani and Vincenzo Nibali, Cunego and Simoni were considered Italy’s best hopes for a Tour de France win. However, neither won a Grand Tour again; Simoni stood on two more Giro podiums after 2004, including 2005, but could only reach 17th in the Tour. Cunego would achieve sixth place in both the Giro and Tour.
Cunego’s post-2004 Giro distinctions came in one-day Classics: three Il Lombardia titles (2004, 2007, 2008) and one Amstel Gold (2008).
Moving to Nippo-Vini Fantini in 2015, Cunego rode the Giro two more times. In 2016 he wore its blue mountains jersey for 13-days, eventually finishing runner-up in the category to Mikel Nieve.
Cunego’s career might fizzle out with no Corsa Rosa farewell tour. Nippo-Vini Fantini wasn’t granted a Giro wild card berth in 2017 and isn’t guaranteed a spot in the 2018 edition either.
