Twiggo is dreaming of a Giro-Tour double. He has sent out mixed messages about his Tour ambitions. Will he use the Giro as the ultimate Tour preparation or will be burn all his matches in May and hope he can find another pack for July? He has abandoned his successful 2012 Tour run-up strategy of winning every stage race he entered the previous spring. Now it’s the seclusion of Mount Doom of Tenerife, his coach and his watt meter his only competition. Team Sky is supporting Wig with a very strong squad, including superman, Kanstantsin Siutsou and with Cav no longer a teammate, it’s all the knights of the round table for Sir Twig.
Will the curse of the god-awful Astana kit continue to haunt non-Kazahk riders? Can Vincenzo’s Italian mojo overpower its powerful pale blue and yellow aura? Roman Kreuziger was finally able to win a big race once he shed that kit and pulled on one of Bjarne’s Saxo jerseys. Maybe it was more Bjarne and less jersey that made the difference.
Ryder gets no respect as the defending champion. His little dance at the end of Liége-Bastogne-Liége showed he is fit and ready for a fight. He can time trial, he can climb. Personally I have to back the local boy. And I always hate the overpowered, overwhelming favorite (read Team Sky here) in any race, unless that racer is Fabian Cancellara. No one can say Fabs has won a race this year surrounded with a team as strong as Sky’s. The Shack is just the Shack or a shack. Once Cancellara leaves for the Swiss “I AM” team, it’s lights out in the shack. Frandy, don’t forget to turn out ’em out when you leave.
If Cavendish wins the first day’s sprinter’s stage he will be in pink. He may be out of it after stage two, a team time trial.
But this is the Giro: crazy, unexpected, beautiful things can happen. The spinning wheels of fortuna are less predictable in Italy as they are in France in July. The betting window is now open. The complete start list is not yet available, an incomplete one is here and shall be updated soon. So sleep on your picks, wait for all the teams to make it official, unless you want to go with the obvious all Sky podium. The race begins Saturday so don’t Delgado away a Grand Tour opportunity.
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Santambrogio will be back...I can feel it....
Wow. Even with my monumentally stupid picks that include 2 abandons (Wiggles and Ryder) and Van Garderen not even on the same continent, I've still got more points than Bretto.
Any chance of getting bonus points for TJ winning a separate race while the Giro is on? Who said Stupidity didn't have any rewards.
Talk of snow and -14 C at the Stelvio later this week. Looks like further route changes afoot. Too bad.
Sicilians are taking it to the Giro big time. 2 stage wins and the pink jersey. Fucking sweet.
So Visconti bridged the break before sharting them out the back!? Effervescent!
I've been really looking forward to todays stage since I first looked at the stages in detail. Hope it lives up to expectations.
@Joe
I am not one for conspiracy theories normally but let's call this a strange coincidence. From 50kms out the commentators (Eurosport - Sean Kelly et al) were waxing lyrical about Campag (this is a good thing, I ride it and love it). They covered the history, the innovation, the quality and all this I was lapping up thinking....bloody right this is Italian shit is great stuff.
Then a lone Italian breaks away. The peloton spectularly forgets to chase in a timely manner and ensure his solo break succeeds.
So on the 80th anniversary of Campag, in their home town, a lone Italian spectacularly rides away from the Peloton on a largely techinically free finish, on an Italian bike with Campag gruppo with the commentators giving Campag thousands upon thousands of pounds of free advertsing..
and this does not seem like an incredible coincidence....er little bells are going off in my head...
christ on a bike - I just took a photo of my screen for posterity. pure joy.
@Deakus The chances of an Italian on an Italian bike with Italian gruppo winning any stage are fairly high in the Giro.
In any case Visconti had been tipped as a possible stage winner yesterday.
And it wasn't as if the peloton forgot to chase - they had got less than a minute from the break when Visconti went away and actually there was a very technical section where it was always going to be hard for a big bunch to chase.After that it was downhill mostly, again favouring a breakaway.
The group was made up largely of GC riders and the few others who had ideas of winning were on their own with no teammates to lead the chase. It kept starting and breaking down.
And then of course there was Navardauskas who didn't even realise Visconti was ahead and thought he was sprinting for the win. ooops.
Finally, if there was a conspiracy then surely the Shimano and SRAM teams would do everything possible to disrupt it.
Nothing to see here...
@ChrisO
Now you have just gone and spoiled a perfectly good theory! I do however feel the peloton made a bit of a hash of chasing him down...especially with race radios to hand, but then I guess they did not see him as a GC threat and so didn't focus enough...after all it was meant to be a sprinters stage right?