The first start of the Giro from Denmark – the pink race had never reached this far north – revealed in 2012 the son of art Taylor Phinney, a twenty-one year old American who won the opening time trial (8.7 kilometres) at over 50 times and wore the pink jersey four years after the other American Christian Vande Velde, who had also worn it at the first stage thanks to the success of his Team Slipstream in the team time trial in Palermo. Phinney puts the British Geraint Thomas 9″ behind him, another who, like him, made his first winning cries on the track. Taylor, in fact, made headlines for the first time in 2009, when at just 18 years old he won the individual pursuit world title, a gold medal he then repeated twelve months later. On the road, however, it was the Giro that gave him his first showcase. And the general public discovers his story. His father Davis, bronze medalist in the team time trial at the ’84 Los Angeles Games, raced 9 seasons among professionals, winning 25 races, including two stages in the Tour de France. Her mother Connie Carpenter, an Olympian in speed skating when she was not yet fifteen in Sapporo ’72, was the first female gold winner in the inline cycling race at the Olympics, also in Los Angeles, as well as winner of a gold in the pursuit at the Track World Championships and a silver and a bronze at the Road World Championships.
three days in pink
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Taylor Phinney retained the leader’s jersey in the first three days, only to then hand it over to Lithuania’s Ramunas Navardauskas. A few weeks later he will be fourth in the London Olympic time trial, then silver in the time trial World Championships, but his predestined career will be cut short on 24 June 2014 by a serious accident at the national championships. He will return only 14 months later, but no longer at the levels that his talent would predict, and then retire in 2019.
