Damiano Cunego

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Damiano Cunego

Cunego at the 2006 Giro d'Italia
Personal information
Full name	Damiano Cunego
Nickname	Il Piccolo Principe (The Little Prince)
Date of birth	September 19, 1981 (1981-09-19) (age 26)
Country	Italy
Height	1.69 m (5 ft 6+1⁄2 in)
Weight	65 kg (140 lb/10.2 st)
Team information
Current team	Lampre-Fondital
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	Climbing specialist
Professional team(s)
2002-2004 2005-	Saeco Lampre
Major wins
Giro d'Italia (2004), 4 stages Giro di Lombardia (2004, 2007) Tour de France, young rider classification (2006) Amstel Gold Race (2008)
Infobox last updated on:
May 22, 2007

Damiano Cunego (born September 19, 1981) is an Italian professional road bicycle racer. He rides for the Italian UCI ProTeam Lampre. Primarily a climber, he has improved his time-trialing performance and is a general classification contender for the stage races.

Contents 1 Career 2 Palmares 3 Notes and references 4 External links

[edit] Career

Cunego was born at Cerro Veronese, Veneto.

He shot to fame during May in the 2004 cycling season, sensationally winning the 2004 Giro d'Italia at the age of 22 with the Saeco team, which became Lampre-Caffita in 2005. Cunego's stunning strength in the 2004 Giro was a surprise to fans and pundits alike, and came as a blow to the prestige of his then team captain Gilberto Simoni. Relations between the two riders during the race were obviously strained and finally, when Cunego stole Simoni's solo breakaway to win the 18th stage, Simoni erupted, calling Cunego "a bastard and an idiot" in an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport. Cunego's Giro win instantly made him the golden boy of Italian cycling, with thousands of fans reaching out to touch the young man in the maglia rosa as he passed.

During the 2004 season he went on to win the Giro di Lombardia UCI Road World Cup race in October, his thirteenth victory of the season. He finished the season ranked number one in the UCI Road World Rankings, making him the youngest rider ever to achieve this, aged just 23. He was also the last rider ranked first on the world ranking, because as of the 2005 season the world ranking was replaced by the UCI ProTour.

In the 2005 Giro d'Italia, Simoni and Cunego were co-captains of the Lampre-Caffita team. As it happened, however, Cunego posed no threat to Simoni. He faltered badly during the first serious climb in the Dolomites, losing six minutes in the day and any prospect of winning the general classification. At the time his team attributed his loss to a "psychological crisis" and Cunego himself said that "a great weight has been lifted from me by this defeat." After the race, however, he was found to have an acute infection of Epstein-Barr virus which might have accounted for his weakness. He did not enter the 2005 Tour de France as he had planned.

In 2006, after an uneventful start to the season, Cunego finished in third on the 2006 edition of the prestigious Liège-Bastogne-Liège cycling classic losing to Alejandro Valverde and Paolo Bettini in a sprint finish. In his first Tour de France, Cunego captured the maillot blanc (or white jersey) in the Best Young Rider classification at the 2006 Tour de France from Markus Fothen on the last time-trial stage. He finished 2nd on stage 15 to L'Alpe D'Huez, after losing to Fränk Schleck, who broke away in the final 2 km. He also finished 3rd on stage 17, on the road to Morzine.

[edit] Palmares

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

• Damiano Cunego official website
• Damiano Cunego - Italian Site and Official Fans Club Online's Room.
• Palmarès at Trap-Friis.dk

Sporting positions
Preceded by Gilberto Simoni	Winner of the Giro d'Italia 2004	Succeeded by Paolo Savoldelli

v • d • e Tour de France Maillot blanc (White jersey) winners 1975: Moser | 1976: Martínez Heredia | 1977: Thurau | 1978: Lubberding | 1979: Bernaudeau | 1980: Van der Velde | 1981: Winnen | 1982: Anderson | 1983: Fignon | 1984: LeMond | 1985: Parra | 1986: Hampsten | 1987: Alcalá | 1988: Breukink | 1989: Philipot | 1990: Delion | 1991: Mejía | 1992: Bouwmans | 1993: Martín | 1994: Pantani | 1995: Pantani | 1996: Ullrich | 1997: Ullrich | 1998: Ullrich | 1999: Salmon | 2000: Mancebo | 2001: Sevilla | 2002: Basso | 2003: Menchov | 2004: Karpets | 2005: Popovych | 2006: Cunego | 2007: Contador

v • d • e Riders on Lampre Fabio Baldato | Alessandro Ballan | Marco Bandiera | Emanuele Bindi | Matteo Bono | Paolo Bossoni | Marzio Bruseghin | Damiano Cunego | Paolo Fornaciari | Francesco Gavazzi | Roberto Longo | David Loosli | Mirco Lorenzetto | Marco Marzano | Massimiliano Mori | Christian Murro | Danilo Napolitano | Daniele Righi | Mauro Santambrogio | Simon Špilak | Gorazd Štangelj | Sylwester Szmyd | Paolo Tiralongo | Patxi Vila | Manager: Giuseppe Saronni

Persondata
NAME	Cunego, Damiano
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Road bicycle racer
DATE OF BIRTH	1981-09-19
PLACE OF BIRTH	Cerro Veronese, Veneto, Italy
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH