article by Nicholas Pucci
There was a time, we are talking about the Nineties, in which the finish line battles between pedal sprinters they were sort of “challenge at the OKCorral“. Take, for example, the Uzbek Djamolidine Abdoujaparov, one of the most representative and strongest of that time, who delivered so many close encounters that even the fastest of all trembled, “re leoneMario Cipollini.
Born in Taskhent, precisely in Uzbekistan, on February 28, 1964, he belonged to the USSR at the time, which made him enter the national team at the age of 18. Not too tall, but compact and with powerful musculature in the legsmore than in the arms, it was clear right away that he was a sprinter with a sure future. And in fact, his long parenthesis among the amateurs made him a hunter of frightening goals. Among other things, unlike many fellow sprinters, he was able to hold enough uphill, a dowry, this, which will later become decisive among the professionalsfor the achievement of those points classification results in the Grand Tours which will represent the most important distinction of his career.
Abdoujaparov entered the cycling elite in 1990 with Alfa Lum, Primo Franchini’s teamcommissioned by Ernesto Colnago to bring to Italy a formation of talents from the Soviet Union, and already in 1991 there was an explosion of the man who immediately became for all the fearsome “Abdu“.
His grit and the vehemence with which he fought in the sprints up to the last meter gave him the image of an abrupt and incorrect runner. Actually its wrong they were mostly due to Abdu’s faults on the bike, precisely because of the disproportion between the muscle masses of the legs and those of the arms. This naturally led him to sway sideways beyond what was due, when he got up on the pedals, and moreover his head in the moment of effort lowered parallel to the asphalt and his eyes didn’t often look forward. In other words, he alone occupied a width of about one and a half meters and his orientation was susceptible to marked deviations without the precise will to cut off the road to his adversaries. Proof of this was the incredible and grotesque fall that saw him protagonist in the last stage of the 1991 Tour de France, on the Champs-Elysees, when, alone and without any disturbance, he pedaled awkwardly towards the barriers, bumping into the Coca Cola advertising bottle, only to end up on the asphalt like a crazed splinter.
In this picture, memorable was the rivalry with Mario Cipollini, precisely because of the enormous difference between the two sprint styles: linear and regal in Italian, undulating and mottled in Uzbek. A rivalry that affected the arrival orders, making the judges work hard, such as in the case of Ghent-Wevelgem in 1991 and 1992, where Abdoujaparov crossed the line first, but in the second case he was disqualified for an irregular sprint.
In any case, Djamolidine marked an abundant luster of victorious chronicles or of protagonism, particularly in the great stage races: he won a stage at the Giro d’Italia, in Marostica in 1994, the year in which he made his own the cyclamen jerseys of the points and blue classifications of the Intergiro, 7 at the Vuelta of Spain and 9 at the Tour de France (he was the first Asian cyclist to win a stage in the Tour). Furthermore, a very rare case in the history of cycling, Djamolidine won the special points classification, in fact, at the 1994 Giro, at the 1992 Vuelta and three times at the Tour de France (1991, when he won in Lyon and Reims, 1993, with successes in Dinard, Bordeaux and Paris, and 1994, when was first on the finish lines of Armentieres and Saint-Point Lac).
Of the day rides, which were the only ones he could obviously aim for, in his palmares the Gand-Wevelgem stands out as mentioned beating Cipollini, Ludwig and Vanderaerden and the Giro del Piemonte in 1991, the Polynormande and the Memorial Rik Van Steenbergen in 1994 and the Cote Picard in 1997. He interrupted his career in 1997, due to repeated positivity in anti-doping controls, remaining to live for a long time in Italy, where, among other things, he opened a pigeon farm. A character. Someone who, in the era of trains, has had multiple aids to a lesser extent than many opponents.
Ed a place in speed dragon history, indeed, rightfully belongs to it.