Giovanni Lombardi

This article is about the bicycle racer. For the engineer, see Giovanni Lombardi (engineer). For the Italian painter, see Giovanni Domenico Lombardi.
Giovanni Lombardi
Personal information
Full name Giovanni Lombardi
Born (1969-07-20) 20 July 1969
Pavia, Italy
Team information
Current team Retired
Discipline Road and track
Role Rider
Rider type Sprinter
Professional team(s)
1992-1994 Lampre
1995-1996 Polti
1997-2001 Telekom
2002 Acqua e Sapone
2003-2004 Domina Vacanze
2005-2006 Team CSC
Major wins

Grand Tours

Giro d'Italia
4 individual stages
(1995, 1996, 2002, 2003)
Vuelta a España
2 individual stages (1998, 2002)
Infobox last updated on
January 14, 2007

Giovanni Lombardi (born 20 July 1969) is an Italian former professional road bicycling racer who raced from 1992 to 2006. He started his career as a sprinter, winning multiple stages in the Giro d'Italia. He went on to ride as an important helper for the top sprinter names of Erik Zabel and Mario Cipollini. Most recently, he rode for Team CSC as a helper for Ivan Basso. Lombardi was also an active track racer during wintertime, and has participated in many six-day races, frequently as a partner of Marco Villa. He also competed at the 1988 Summer Olympics and the 1992 Summer Olympics, winning a gold medal at the latter.[1]

Biography

Lombardi was born in Pavia (Lombardy). In 1992 he became a pro with the Lampre team. Lombardi's speciality is the bunch sprint, which he already proved in his early pro-years. Among other wins, he won a stage in the 1993 Midi Libre and the year after two stages in both Tour de Suisse and Vuelta a Murcia. He also came in second in three different stages of the Giro d'Italia during his years at Lampre.

In 1995, his first year of service in the Polti team, he finally won a Giro d'Italia stage, as well as another stage win in Tour de Suisse. A year later he yet again won a stage in the Giro, as well as one in Ronde van Nederland.

Despite his victories, Lombardi still stood in the shadow of the great sprinters of his generation, such as Erik Zabel and Mario Cipollini. For this reason Lombardi chose to cash in on his talent by relocating to Telekom in 1997. Here his job was to prepare the sprint for Erik Zabel, by guiding Zabel through the peloton. In his first year in the team, he missed out on the peak of the cycling season, Tour de France, as the team wanted to ride for Jan Ullrich's chances in the general classement. During his time at Telekom, however, Lombardi gathered a healthy list of honours, including stage triumphs in Volta a Catalunya, Tour of Austria, Bicicleta Vasca and Tirreno–Adriatico, as well as a stage in the 1998 Vuelta a España, Ronde van Nederland, Vuelta a Burgos and Danmark Rundt.

In 2002, Lombardi returned to his native country, to drive in the service of Cipollini at the Acqua e Sapone and Domina Vacanze teams. Beside working hard in the last kilometres of the races for Cipollini, Lombardi himself still won stages in the Giro (two times), the Vuelta, Tour de Romandie and Vuelta a Aragón.

Before the 2005 season, he left Cipollini and went to the Danish Team CSC. Lombardi became the only rider of the peloton to participate and complete all three grand tours of the 2005 season, riding the Giro and Tour de France for team captain Ivan Basso as well as the Vuelta for Carlos Sastre. He now uses his great experience of towing Zabel and Cipollini around the peloton to keep Basso in the right place and avoid crashes for his captain.

Major results

1992
Olympics Points Race
1993
Stage 1, Midi Libre
Stage 1 and Stage 4, Hofbräu Cup
1994
Stage 2 and Stage 10, Tour de Suisse
Stage 1 and Stage 3, Vuelta a Murcia
1995
Stage 22, Giro d'Italia
Stage 7, Tour de Suisse
1996
Stage 3, Giro d'Italia
Stage 3, Ronde van Nederland
Stage 4, Giro di Puglia
Stage 2, Giro di Calabria
1997
Stage 4, Tirreno–Adriatico
Stage 6, Ronde van Nederland
Stage 1, Bicicleta Vasca
Stage 2 and Stage 5, Danmark Rundt
1998
Stage 7, Vuelta a España
Stage 6, Tirreno–Adriatico
1999
Stage 4, Bicicleta Vasca
Stage 4, Regio-Tour
Stage 3, Tour of Austria
2000
Stage 5 and Stage 6, Volta a Catalunya
Stage 3, Vuelta a Burgos
Stage 1, Bicicleta Vasca
Stage 5, Vuelta a Aragón
Stage 1 and Stage 7, Tour of Austria
2002
Stage 6, Giro d'Italia
Stage 13, Vuelta a España
Stage 1 and Stage 3, Tour de Romandie
Stage 5, Vuelta a Aragón
Stage 3, Tour Méditerranéen
2003
Stage 20, Giro d'Italia

References

  1. ↑ "Giovanni Lombardi Olympic Results". Olympics at Sports-Reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved 9 July 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/26/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.