FALZES, 26 May 2004 — Italy’s great hope for the future Damiano Cunego regained the overall leader’s pink jersey yesterday after winning the 16th stage of the Tour of Italy, a 217km ride from San Vendiamo.
The 22-year-old riding in only his second edition of the race came home alone in the first mountain stage in the Dolomites 1min 16sec clear of compatriot Rinaldo Nocentini while Swiss rider Alexandre Moos took third another 22sec in arrears.
Cunego, who has been seen as the successor to the late Marco Pantani, leads overall by 1:14 ahead of Serhiy Honchar of the Ukraine.
Titleholder and teammate of Cunego Gilberto Simoni was more than two-and-a-half minutes adrift having helped along with the Saeco team to set up the stage victory for the 1999 world junior champion, who had surrendered the pink jersey last Saturday after a time-trial.
Cunego paid justifiable tribute to his teammates, especially Simoni as the two-time champion had set out at the start of the race as the team leader but had confessed earlier in the event that if Cunego was stronger than him then he should go for it.
The man who had replaced him in pink Ukraine’s Yaroslav Popovych lost more than four minutes to Cunego in a stage he had confessed on Monday to be the one he was most afraid of.
The 24-year-old was unable to react to Cunego’s attack on the third and penultimate climb of the day, Passo Furcia, some 59km from the finish.
