By Dave Campbell — It was mid-June of 1988, and I had just taken the last final of my freshman year at the University of Oregon and was strolling through the Student Union. My mind was on the packing I still had to do back in my dorm room before heading back to Wyoming when I ran into my U of O cycling club teammate Michael Keep. His face lit up when he saw me with that manic passion for bike racing that we shared.
“Have you heard?” he asked. “Andy Hampsten just won the Giro!” he exclaimed. Mike was always flush with the latest news on cycling because unlike me, he had a subscription to VeloNews, as well as friends at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. I had not heard and was absolutely thrilled and craving details.
“I guess it was just a classic Giro victory, and he took the lead through horrible snowy conditions in the mountains that were totally epic!” he continued. “And then his 7-Eleven team had to defend his lead and they did it! Can you believe it?”
Given that Greg Lemond became America’s first Tour de France winner in 1986 and his young teammate Hampsten was fourth, I could believe it, but what an incredible and historic accomplishment. Hampsten left Lemond’s French team the year before, which many felt was “the best in the world” to return as leader of the fledgling American 7-Eleven squad, giving additional significance to the victory…he won with an American team!
“We” Americans had come so far in such a short period of time. George Mount, after all, was the first to ride a Grand Tour, taking on the Giro in 1981, followed by Jonathan Boyer tackling the Tour later the same year and we hadn’t gotten a rider on a Grand Tour podium until Lemond was third in the 1984 Tour, the same year an American team (Gianni Motta-Linea MD) first contested the Giro.
When the 7-Eleven team first tackled the Giro d’Italia in 1985, it was their first attempt at a Grand Tour, and they were seen as a bit of a novelty… “the criterium boys go to Europe”. Their goals were modest: win a stage and place a rider in the top twenty overall. They accomplished both goals, first with Ron Kiefel winning into Perugia and then struck again with Hampsten (on loan from the Levi’s-Raleigh team) claiming victory atop Gran Paradiso and squeaking into twentieth overall. They rode the Tour de France in 1986 and 1987 and when they returned to the Giro in 1988, their goals and capacity had risen significantly.
From the late-1970s through the mid-1880s the Giro routes had been a bit anemic. The Italian stars of the era, Beppe Saronni and Francesco Moser struggled in the high mountains but shone in time trials and sprints. As such, race director Vincenzo Torriani designed courses to best suit them, with minimal mountains and few summit finishes. By 1988, however, Moser had retired and Saronni was well past his prime and racing as Del Tongo’s road captain.
The 71st Giro was the most difficult in years, featuring seven mountain stages, five summit finishes, and a mountain time trial over its 3579 kilometers. On Italian television prior to the start the twenty teams of nine riders each were presented, and the leaders were asked who they thought would win with all deflecting the pressure to other riders. Italian Franco Chioccioli of Del Tongo was a favorite as was Swiss Urs Zimmerman, Frenchman Jean-Francois Bernard of Toshiba-Look, Spaniard Pedro Delgado of Reynolds, and Dutchman Erik Breukink of Panasonic.
When the interviewer asked Raul Alcala of the 7-Eleven squad what he thought, he said “Oh, Andy is going to win!” bringing his bored teammates to their feet as they thrust out their arms and exclaimed “Yeah!”
The team had enjoyed an excellent spring with Hampsten winning a mountain stage at Paris-Nice, Kiefel placing third in Ghent-Wevelgem and winning the Giro di Toscana, and Bob Roll and Davis Phinney both winning stages of the Tour of Romandie, where Hampsten came fourth overall. Hampsten had trained especially hard that winter, at the urging of coach Mike Neel, who convinced him to train for up to eight hours solid in rugged weather to build a bigger foundation. Hampsten had taken this to heart, often doing long snowy hikes in the dead of the Colorado winter.
Having won the Tour de Suisse in 1986-87, Hampsten had chosen to focus on the Giro instead and studied the route meticulously. Italian cycling legend Gianni Motta, the 1966 Giro champion who had supported the first Americans in the Giro back in 1984, counseled him about the fearsome Passo Gavia which would feature in Stage fourteen. Motta noted the pass was last used by the Giro in 1960, the Italian riders didn’t know it, and they had no idea how hard it was. Starting at an elevation of 1258 meters, the Gavia rises to 2621 meters, over 8500 feet high, in just over 17 kilometers, at an average gradient of 7.9%. The road turns to dirt after 6 km and the steepest pitches occur shortly thereafter and peak at 16%. There was likely to be difficult weather there and the Giro, he assured Hampsten would be won and lost on the Gavia.
Hampsten was 13th in the opening time trial in Urbino, twenty seconds down on Bernard. His team was 9th in the Team Time Trial on Stage four in Vieste, conceding over a minute and a half to Chioccioli’s Del Tongo squad. The Italian would take the lead two days later with victory in the first summit finish to Campitello Matese, but Hampsten was second, just twelve seconds behind and moved into eighth overall, just over two minutes down.
The next big test came on the summit finish of the 205-kilometer stage twelve from Novara to Selvino. Hampsten attacked with three kilometers to go and won the stage solo. He joyously crossed the line eleven seconds clear of Delgado to move into fifth, now just 1:18 in arrears. He told Geoff Drake, who penned the definitive book “Team 7-Eleven” that “I just felt so good, I thought other people were playing a practical joke on me. I just rode away.”
As the Gavia stage approached and severe weather moved in, team director Jim Ochowicz raided the local ski shops for warm clothing for his riders. The 7-Eleven soigneurs coated the riders with lanolin as if they were preparing to swim the English Channel and prepared extra bags with warm clothes and tea for the summit, because the Gavia stage would finish not on the summit but rather in Bormio following a 25-kilometer descent. The rain was already turning into snow at the 9 a.m. start at 600 meters elevation so the riders knew when they climbed to 2600 meters the conditions would be brutal.
Dutch points leader Johan Van der Velde led an eight man break away over the Passo Tonale in heavy sleet while the race favorites waited for the final climb. As his teammates delivered him hot tea throughout the stage, Hampsten looked over his competitors and decided they were suffering more than he was. He thought many of them looked scared and as they approached the Gavia, he removed his raincoat, hat, and legwarmers and the team led him out for his big attack. On the advice of team doctor Max Testa, Hampsten punched it as soon as the road turned to dirt, marked by a stand of larch trees at a hairpin with 14 km to go, just as they entered the steepest section.
Riding within himself in a low gear of 39×25, knowing the race will be won on the descent, Hampsten’s first time-split is 47 seconds over Breukink. As the snowfall gets heavier, he takes a wool neck warmer and hat and when he brushes the snow off his head to pull on the cap, is shocked to feel a giant snowball roll down his back! Van de Velde hits the summit first but has very little warm clothing on, and according to Neel was “frozen like a statue” and will go on to lose over forty-five minutes on the descent. Hampsten, meanwhile, stops to put on a rain jacket and is caught by Breukink.
The dirt road beneath the slush actually provided the riders with good traction but visibility was almost zero and there is no lead car, no helicopter, no follow car, and no escort whatsoever. The riders just followed the tire tracks in the road and tried to make it down the mountain as best they could and just survive in the frigid conditions. At one point, Hampsten looked down at his legs, which were bright red, and his shins were covered with ice, and he decided he wouldn’t look down again.
As the snow turned to rain with seven km to go, Breukink accelerated away with Hampsten unable to respond. The Dutch rider would win the stage seven seconds clear, but the physically and emotionally exhausted American took the pink jersey with a 15 second cushion over his rival while Chioccioli was the next closest on GC at nearly four minutes down. Eight stages still remained but the Gavia had been decisive.
Continued snowfall shortened the following stage, and the riders climbed the Stelvio pass in team cars. Bernard, who lost nine minutes on the Gavia, won the abbreviated stage into the ski station at Merano 2000 and Hampsten put another 27 seconds into Breukink on the fifteen-kilometer-long finishing climb. All of the favorites finished together on Stages 16 and 17 with Hampsten’s next major challenge being the Stage 18 time trial, 18 kilometers from Levico Terme up to Vetriolo Terme. After six kilometers on flat city streets, the stage would climb nearly 1000 meters at an average of 8.4% through a dozen switchbacks. After calmly warming up on rollers listening to music, Hampsten pegged his heart rate at 180 beats per minute on the advice of Testa and laid waste to all comers. Leading at every check point, he won the stage by 32 seconds and increased his GC lead to 1:51 over Breukink and 5:10 on Zimmerman. It was the best time trial performance of his career, and he later said, “it hurt so much, it was almost like a meditation.”
Stage 19, a 233-kilometer slog through the Dolomites to Arta Terme was where it could have all come undone. Zimmerman attacked on the Passo Duran and crossed the summit nearly a minute clear, but Hampsten stayed alongside Breukink and didn’t worry. But when Italian Stefano Giuliani bridges across, the gap starts to really grow. Hampsten only has teammates Jeff Pierce and Bob Roll with him and Breukink is forcing him to chase as the gap grows to four minutes. Roll is dropped with only sixty kilometers remaining and Mike Neel makes the difficult call to wait for a chasing group behind that contains several more teammates, risking losing the race in order to win it. While Hampsten’s group soft pedals, “Slim Zim” moves seven minutes up and is now the leader on the road, while Breukink has effectively lost his GC spot as well.
Fortunately, the forty-rider group contains Slurpees riders Ron Kiefel, Dag-Otto Lauritzen, Raul Alcala, and Bob Roll who were ready to give everything for their team leader. Hampsten, meanwhile, convinces Breukink to commit his Panasonic teammates to the chase as well and slowly and with great effort, the gap comes down to just three minutes on the line and Hampsten’s Giro is saved.
Just two sprint stages and a 43-kilometer closing time trial in Vittorio Veneto remained for the 125 riders left of the 180 that set out. Hampsten has 1:49 on Zimmerman and 2:06 on Breukink, but the Dutchman is a ferocious time trialist on flat terrain. A thunderstorm rolls in during the stage and Hampsten wisely backs off on a slippery descent while Zimmerman, riding double discs in the gusty winds, takes risks and crashes heavily, ultimately conceding his second place on GC to Breukink. The Panasonic rider finishes fifth behind Polish chrono specialist Lech Piasecki but puts only 23 seconds into the pink-clad American, who finishes seventh on the day.
Following the awards ceremony, where Hampsten also won the combined jersey and King of the Mountains competition, the 7-Eleven squad piled into their team cars to drive three hours up the autostrada to Villa d’Alme, just outside Bergamo to celebrate. Why so far? They had reserved tables at the Bar Augusto, where team members Davis Phinney, Kiefel, Hampsten and others had regularly stayed during their amateur days while racing in Northern Italy with the US National Team.
The adopted Italian home of the American riders is filled with trophies and framed jerseys, including Fausto Coppi’s maglia rosa from his first Giro win in 1940. In the early 80s, the team was so proud when they finally brought their own small trophy from an amateur race back for the proprietor to put on the mantle and now, they had claimed the very biggest prize in Italian cycling. That night, amidst the popping of champagne corks, another pink jersey was proudly hung on the wall, with the signature of a proud American…Andy Hampsten!
- Drake, Geoff with Ochowicz, Jim. (2011) Team 7-Eleven: How an Unsung Band of American cyclists took on the World and Won. Velopress.
- Dreier, Frederick. (2024) Giro d’Italia Redux: The Amazing Story of Andy Hampsten’s 1988 Giro d’Italia Victory. VeloNews.com
- Martin, Pierre; Penazzo, Sergio; Bratino, Dante; Schamps, Daniel; & Vos, Cor. (1984) Tour 84. Kennedy Brothers Publishing Ltd.
- Wilcockson, John. (2008) Hampsten and the 1988 Pink Jersey: Parts 1-4. VeloNews.com.
Dave Campbell was born and raised in Lander, Wyoming and now resides in Bend, Oregon. A retired High School Science and Health teacher, Dave won four Wyoming state cycling championships before moving to Oregon to attend the U of O in Eugene. While there, Dave was a collegiate All American and went on to win six Oregon State Cycling Championships as well as a Masters National Road Title on the Tandem. He started writing Trivia in 1992 for Oregon Cycling News and continued the column with the Northwest Bicycle Paper. Dave also writes cycling history at “Clips_and_Straps” on Instagram and announces at cycling events throughout Oregon.
