73 Facts About Michele Scarponi

Michele Scarponi led the Androni Giocattoli team at a Grand Tour for the first time at the 2010 Giro d'Italia, where he finished in fourth overall and won a stage for the second successive year.

Michele Scarponi took two further fourth-place overall finishes at the Giro d'Italia in 2012 and 2013, but no further stage wins.

Michele Scarponi joined the Astana team in 2014, initially serving as a team leader for that year's Giro d'Italia, before often serving in a domestique role for the remainder of his career, in support of his compatriots Vincenzo Nibali and Fabio Aru.

Michele Scarponi admitted to his involvement in May 2007, following meetings with the Italian National Olympic Committee and was suspended from racing until August 2008.

Michele Scarponi was born on 25 September 1979 in the town of Jesi, in the central Italian region of Marche, to Giacomo and Flavia.

Michele Scarponi joined the local cycling club Pieralisi aged eight, and began to win races.

Michele Scarponi was then given a place in the national team at the 1997 UCI Road World Championships in San Sebastian, Spain; he took part in the junior road race, finishing in 104th position.

Michele Scarponi had taken his first victory with the team, winning a stage at the Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda, en route to a second-place finish overall, and made his debut at a Grand Tour, finishing in eighteenth at the 2002 Giro d'Italia.

Michele Scarponi again finished in the top twenty at the Giro d'Italia, and finished thirteenth at the Vuelta a Espana.

Michele Scarponi started the 2004 season with strong performances in the spring Italian stage races; he finished third overall with a stage win at the Settimana Internazionale di Coppi e Bartali, before winning the Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda a couple of weeks later along with two stage wins, the points and mountains classifications.

Forgoing the Giro d'Italia, Michele Scarponi contested the Peace Race; he won the fourth stage in Germany after joining a late-stage move and took the sprint finish in Grunhain-Beierfeld.

Michele Scarponi maintained the overall lead for the remainder of the race to its finish in Prague.

Michele Scarponi finished seventh at the Vuelta a Burgos, and recorded his best Grand Tour finish to that point with twelfth at the Vuelta a Espana, riding largely as a domestique for Roberto Heras, who was initially disqualified after a positive doping test for erythropoietin, but was later reinstated.

In 2006, Michele Scarponi was implicated in the Operacion Puerto doping case.

Michele Scarponi won the second stage of the race into Faenza after attacking from the peloton with 1.6 kilometres remaining.

Michele Scarponi entered the final day two seconds behind race leader Luca Pierfelici, but Pierfelici was dropped; with Scarponi finishing second to Riccardo Ricco in Sassuolo, Scarponi won the race overall by eight seconds ahead of Ricco, who overhauled Pierfelici on the general classification.

Thereafter, Michele Scarponi was implicated in the Operacion Puerto case.

Michele Scarponi returned to racing at the Giro dell'Appennino on 3 August, and recorded his best result of the 2008 season at the Giro dell'Emilia in October, finishing in seventh position.

In 2009, Michele Scarponi started his season with a fifth-place overall finish at the Vuelta a Andalucia, supporting Davide Rebellin's ultimately unsuccessful bid to win the race.

Michele Scarponi avoided trouble in the final stage, to take his first victory at UCI World Ranking level, 25 seconds ahead of Garzelli.

Michele Scarponi dropped his final breakaway companion, Vasil Kiryienka, about 10 kilometres from the finish, and soloed to his first Grand Tour stage victory.

Michele Scarponi made it into the breakaway on the eighteenth stage; he was one of a septet of riders that broke clear from a larger group of twenty-five riders with 15 kilometres left to race, and they contested a final sprint for the stage win, which Scarponi prevailed in, to take his second win of the Giro d'Italia.

Michele Scarponi ultimately finished 31st in the final general classification standings.

Michele Scarponi contested a series of one-day races during the second half of the season, taking top tens at the Prueba Villafranca de Ordizia, the Coppa Ugo Agostoni, and the Gran Premio Industria e Commercio di Prato, where he finished seventh.

Michele Scarponi was selected for the UCI Road World Championships in Mendrisio, Switzerland, where he failed to finish the road race.

Michele Scarponi took the race lead with victory in the fourth stage, attacking with Vincenzo Nibali, before later dropping him on the run-in to Chieti.

Michele Scarponi then lost time to Stefano Garzelli on each of the next two stages held, and went into the final day just two seconds clear.

Michele Scarponi then competed in the Settimana Ciclistica Lombarda, where he won the opening stage prologue, a 6.6-kilometre time trial up the Colle Gallo.

Michele Scarponi finished second in two other stages, as he won overall by 22 seconds ahead of his closest competitor, Riccardo Ricco.

Michele Scarponi led a team at a Grand Tour for the first time, leading the Androni Giocattoli team.

Michele Scarponi finished third on successive days, on stage 14 to Monte Grappa, and stage 15 to Monte Zoncolan; on the latter stage, he had been in the lead group until he was distanced by Cadel Evans and Ivan Basso.

Michele Scarponi moved up to fourth overall as a result; he moved to within a second of the overall podium the following day at the Tonale Pass, but ultimately finished thirteen seconds shy in fourth place, after the final stage individual time trial in Verona.

Michele Scarponi finished fourth in the points classification, and fifth in the mountains classification.

Michele Scarponi made his debut with the team at the Giro di Sardegna, where he won the final stage after a late attack; he finished in fourth place overall, missing out on the podium by eleven seconds.

Michele Scarponi finished third on the penultimate stage, and ultimately finished third overall behind Cadel Evans and Robert Gesink, while winning the points classification for amassing the highest number of points during stages at intermediate sprints and stage finishes.

Michele Scarponi then competed in the Volta a Catalunya several days later, finishing second in the overall standings behind Alberto Contador.

Michele Scarponi won the Giro del Trentino; he broke clear with Thomas Voeckler on the final climb of the second stage, and the duo remained clear to the end, with Voeckler winning the sprint but Michele Scarponi took the lead overall.

Michele Scarponi maintained the lead for the rest of the race, winning it for the first time.

Michele Scarponi lost time on the ninth stage, the most difficult stage up to that point with the finish at Mount Etna; he had tried to follow an attack by Alberto Contador, but very quickly lost the pace, and ultimately lost 67 seconds to Contador.

Commentators felt that Michele Scarponi had been "left wanting both physically and tactically" and paid for his efforts on the climb, but he did remain in fifth place overall.

Michele Scarponi finished eighth on the stage, but praised his team, mentioning Alessandro Petacchi in particular, for their hard work at the front of the race for much of the day.

Michele Scarponi reached the halfway point of the Giro in fifth position, 88 seconds behind race leader Contador.

At the Zoncolan, Michele Scarponi initially followed Igor Anton and Contador up the climb, but was not able to hold onto their pace, and as a result, was overtaken by Nibali, who had approached from the group trailing behind.

Michele Scarponi lost another fifty seconds to Contador, and fell to fourth place overall, as Anton moved ahead of him.

Michele Scarponi was much closer to Contador on the Gardeccia climb, losing just fourteen seconds; however, he finished well ahead of both Anton and Nibali, and moved into second place in the overall classification.

Michele Scarponi finished second to Joaquim Rodriguez on the eighth stage, but was not a major factor in the general classification; he abandoned on stage 14, trailing the overall leader Bradley Wiggins by over 24 minutes.

Michele Scarponi then moved on to the Tour of the Basque Country, where he was part of the lead group on the final climb of the third stage to Eibar, before fading down to seventh place on the stage.

Michele Scarponi ultimately finished the race in eighth place overall.

Michele Scarponi moved into the top ten of the overall classification definitively after stage 14, and worked his way into the top five three stages later, with a sixth-place finish on stage 17.

Michele Scarponi was one of a lead group of six riders that remained on the Giau Pass; he was dropped towards the top of the climb along with Rigoberto Uran, but they both made it back into the lead group on the descent into Cortina d'Ampezzo.

On stage 19 finishing on the Pampeago Pass, Michele Scarponi tried to breach the group of overall contenders on the final climb, but was unable to do so.

Michele Scarponi ultimately finished the stage in fourth place, but moved up to third overall.

Inside the final 5 kilometres, Michele Scarponi launched forward, and was closely followed by Rodriguez, with no movement from Hesjedal.

Therefore, Michele Scarponi finished fourth overall with Hesjedal taking the overall win.

Michele Scarponi lost over two minutes on the sixth stage, after being delayed by an incident that became known as the "Metz Massacre", where numerous riders hit the tarmac.

Michele Scarponi was not a factor in the second part of the race, and ultimately finished in 24th overall, almost an hour down on winner Bradley Wiggins.

Michele Scarponi had been fifth going into the final stage in Barcelona, but he bridged across a 20-second gap to reach three race leaders.

Michele Scarponi only breached the top ten in stage results once during the first half of the race, but never dropped lower than sixth after the eighth stage; he ultimately finished fourth overall, the same place as he finished in 2010 and 2012.

Michele Scarponi was part of a three-man move that stayed clear until the end of the race, along with Ivan Santaromita and Davide Rebellin; Michele Scarponi was able to get the better of Rebellin in the finish, but was out-sprinted by Santaromita who went on to win the tricolour jersey.

Michele Scarponi then continued his progression towards the Vuelta a Espana, by competing in the Tour de Pologne.

Michele Scarponi was selected as the team leader for the Giro d'Italia, and was named as one of the pre-race favourites for the general classification; Scarponi was "optimistic" of his chances at the race.

Michele Scarponi crashed on stage six, losing almost two minutes, and he lost another ten minutes two stages later, as the team leadership started to move towards Fabio Aru; Scarponi ultimately withdrew from the race on stage sixteen.

Michele Scarponi led the squad at the Tour of the Basque Country, where he finished sixth overall, as well as finishing two stages in sixth place.

At the Vuelta a Burgos, he was part of the squad that won the team time trial on the second stage, and with two other fourth-place stage finishes, Michele Scarponi finished in second place overall, two seconds behind teammate Rein Taaramae.

In September 2015, it was announced that Michele Scarponi had again extended his contract for a further year with Astana.

Michele Scarponi again started his season at the Tour de San Luis, before moving on to the spring Italian stage races.

Michele Scarponi missed a month of racing as the injury healed, and returned to competition at the Giro del Trentino.

Michele Scarponi competed in the Tour de Suisse, before a mid-summer break, where he announced another 12-month contract extension for 2017.

Michele Scarponi led his team at the Vuelta a Espana, taking three top ten stage finishes, but missed out on a top ten placing overall, finishing in eleventh place.

Michele Scarponi started the 2017 season by competing in the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana and Volta ao Algarve races in February, finishing in the top twenty of them both.

Michele Scarponi had the strongest finish, as he out-sprinted the remaining members of the group, taking his first individual victory since his 2013 Gran Premio della Costa Etruschi success.

At around 08:00 local time, Michele Scarponi was riding along the SP 362 provincial road, one kilometre from the centre of his home town of Filottrano, when he was hit at a road junction by an Iveco Daily van, driven by 57-year-old local craftsman Giuseppe Giacconi.

Michele Scarponi was married to Anna Tommasi, with whom he had twin boys, Giacomo and Tommaso.