S14 Ep51: One-Hit Wonder
The Cycling Podcast
The Cycling Podcast
4.7 • 3K Ratings
🗓️ 25 May 2026
⏱️ 53 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The 2016 Giro d’Italia was the first edition covered end to end, on the ground, by The Cycling Podcast, and what a race it proved to be. A thrilling last week saw Steven Kruijswijk fall at the last hurdle, almost literally, and Vincenzo Nibali mount an extraordinary comeback. But neither of these stories could rival stage 15 to Alpe di Siusi and more specifically the victory of rank outsider Alexander Foliforov for sheer shock value.
Foliforov disappeared almost as quickly as he burst onto the scene, retiring two years after his Giro stage win. Since then he has become a meme, a sort of post-ironic legend, but above all an enigma: what mysterious force propelled him to victory that day, and where has he vanished to over the last ten years?
Exactly a decade on from the Russian’s greatest day, Daniel Friebe tracked him down and invited Foliforov to relive and explain one of the strangest days and results in recent Giro history.
One-Hit Wonder was written and produced by Daniel Friebe. Music is by Amaraterra.
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2026 Girovagando selection:
You can buy this year’s Girovagando wine selection here: https://dvinecellars.com/products/cycling-podcast-giro-26.
The wines with corresponding stage numbers are as follows:
Stage 3: Mixtape Red, Georgiev & Milkov, Plovdiv (red)
Stage 4: Tenuta del Conte, Calabria Rosso, Calabria (red)
Stage 5: Vigneti del Vulture, Pipoli, Aglianico del Vulture, Basilicata (red)
Stage 10: Bianco 'il Terraio’ Paterna, Tuscany (white)
Stage 14: Les Crêtes Mon Blanc, Valle D’Aosta (white)
Stage 20: Braida Antica Blanc, Russolo, Friuli Venezia-Giulia (white)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Little did we all right now |
| 0:07.0 | Little did we realise it at the time but the thrilling denouement of the 2016 Jiro |
| 0:23.6 | of Italy also marked the end of an era for Italian cycling. Or one could say the beginning |
| 0:29.0 | of a drought that lasts until this day. That is a whole decade without an Italian winner of the |
| 0:34.2 | Giro. |
| 0:36.2 | Juxtaposed with Vincenzo Nibleius' tears of joy that afternoon and the screams of his |
| 0:40.6 | Tifosi was the dignified anguish of Stephen Kreisweig. |
| 0:44.3 | Stephen Kreiswek comes over the line and collapses on the tarmac. |
| 0:48.3 | I couldn't do any more than I did and this was it and after crash like yesterday you have to fight and to see where |
| 0:59.6 | you finish and he had led for most of the race's second half only to crash into a snowdrift on |
| 1:04.8 | the way down the collie del aniello on stage 18 the winner that day was estban Chavez, who also took the pink jersey. |
| 1:13.6 | The Colombian two though would eventually succumb to Nibli on that extraordinary penultimate |
| 1:18.2 | afternoon in Santana Di Vinario. |
| 1:20.6 | Dai no, we're Italian, just to speak in Italian. |
| 1:23.6 | Forza Nibaly, they didn't want to speak in English, but I think you got that. That was the Canibali, Vincenza Nibli's long time. |
| 1:31.2 | Scycling podcasts had chosen a beguiling uncertain, but in some ways eccentric Jero as our first to cover from end to end. |
| 1:38.5 | That'd been the Grande Partenza in the Netherlands. |
| 1:41.0 | There we are then. The 2016 Jiro Detalia is underway. That was the crowd cheering Babio Sabatini, the first rider to tackle the opening stage |
| 1:50.0 | time trial here in Apple John. |
| 1:51.0 | The 26-year-old former ski jumper Primos Roglitch winning the showpiece time trial in Kianti in |
| 1:57.0 | his first major tour. |
| 1:59.0 | A completely off-coloured nibimbly until the final rest day |
... |
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