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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Yikes, Nibbles on a monster. Too bad any suspense in this year's race is gone. He's racing like a 2006 Basso.
Interesting commentary on my (and I presume others) view on our culture; I considered him clean at Liquigas, and his move to Astana (which I don't consider clean) and a performance like this puts him squarely in the suspicion category. The alternative is that they're all clean and he's rising to the top because of it, but I put as much stake in that as I do that as being the reasoning for the Great Columbian Ascension.
No change on the GC from the VSP perspective, but 2/3 could shuffle and personally I'd be grateful if Scarples fell to 5th..
@frank
I too would appreciate Wee Scarpo falling to fifth as it looks like that's my only realistic change of getting any of the top 5 right. Looks like Evans had a bad day which I was sad to see - I think he's ridden a great race. OTOH, his low finish helps keep the red jersey on Cav which I want. He was robbed of it last year by being taken out in two sprints in which he would have scored points - in the end he lost it by 1 point.
@frank
Will be rooting like mad for Uran to make this happen... that way I could at least salvage 8 points.
Of course with my luck Evans will completely crack tomorrow and saturday, drop down past 3rd and I'd be back to 1 point again.
Oh well, either way can't wait to watch the next 2 days of racing. Hoping the weather is good enough to run the race, but bad enough to make it epic. Here's a shot from the Stelvio webcam at 12pm local time today:
@frank
I've been quietly pleased with my outside bets: Santambrogio and Intxausti, both of whom have now fallen out of the top five, but have taken stage victories. I'm rather hoping for an epic collapse from Scarponi and Evans to put them back in the money. But that might be asking a bit much.
@ChrisO
The team of climbing domestiques were also quite strong collectively the day after the rest day...
On the other hand, I'm looking forward to the various excusing which should be forthcoming from Cuddles any minute...
@frank
I logged on specifically to voice my suspicion about Nibbles but I see you've beaten me to it. I trust Astana about as far as I could throw them (I wouldn't want to try; too much risk of building some muscles mass on my arms) and I can't help but look on this with a degree of suspicion.
Obvioisly the same could be said of Sky at last year's TdF; is their abject failure (by their standards) at the Giro proof that they're not ripped off their tits on uppers or merely trying to make it look less suspect? Personally I believe it's the former...
@frank
Well this was Evan's tweet just now
"Uphill TT done here at the Giro: Nibali in a class of his own. Evans -if I may say so myself- abysmal...."
@motor city
Does this UKCyclingExpert know how a TT works? His last two posts on it earlier...
Whatever Nibali is doing, it's not working! He's dead last at the moment! Needs to start overtaking other cyclists!
Wow! Vicente Nibali finishes last but still wins according to the Italian tour operator!
I guess he thinks that the riders have to cross the line first to win. Unless I'm missing something here, in which case I'm the twat...
christ, I'm dense
@moondance Could it be sarcasm?
Or maybe he's a REcycling expert?