Vincenzo Nibali won the Giro going downhill.
I spy with my little eye a certain Michele Scarponi, who sadly lost his life while out training near his home two weeks ago, in there amongst his teammates after his captain, Nibbles, won the race. I’m torn about a death like Michele’s – we subject ourselves to similar risks every time we climb aboard our bikes and we accept it as part and parcel of our craft. Yet, while every day members of our tribe lose their lives to their trade, it takes a high profile rider to remind us how real that risk is.
But onto lighter topics, Nibali won the Giro last year going downhill, and it happened on the one stage I managed to sleep through which is another way of saying I missed it. But I love waking up to a that WTF feeling only a reshuffled GS can give you.
The race starts Friday morning, which is sooner than I expected, so I’ll stop typing so you can start picking. Get them in by the time the clock goes to zero, and remember that our Grand Tour scoring rules are a little different than the smaller events. So jump on that start list and get prognosticating!
Good luck!
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View Comments
@Rick
A nice little 25-30 km TT in the first and third weeks, and a 60 kms in the middle week. That would really force the hand of the racers, particularly the climbers, as they'd need to factor in time gained/lost in the TTs and apply that to the mountains. It would make for a better, more even race.This year the Tour has two TTs - a 13km prologue and a 23 km TT the second to last day. Not. Remotely. Enough.
@wiscot
Agreed, not nearly enough. I love the last stage as a TT but the Champs has become so important for the sprinters that most would drop out the last week if it was a final stage TT.
@Rick
You could have a TT on the last but one. Still leave the precession to the Champs and the sprint.
@Teocalli
That used to happen quite regularly as I recall. I loved the suspense that it added to the race.
@Teocalli
Why not both?
As several riders pointed out in Giro interviews their race had ended on Saturday - 90% of the field was just going through the motions.
Let teams nominate riders for a short neutralised sprint stage in the morning and just have 20-30 riders for a TT to follow and decide the final classification - the top GC riders and any TT specialists.
It wasn't unusual in years gone by to have split stages on a single day.
@ChrisO
Or make the last TT for the top 30 riders plus any riders still in with a shout for a classification. Ok, it's not the full meal deal, but it would save a few legs for a more dynamic Champs stage.
@Jansen
It's not the pick system that'a crappy, it was Tom. He clearly came Turd.
@Jansen
Well the actual VSP entry was opened after race start if I recall correctly. Just simply listing your picks, which a lot of us did in advance of race start and the entry being open, was for fun. You may have actually been the one and only original TD for the win pick too ! There were more than a few Steve K's picked but TD's ?? Not before the 1st rest day I believe.
@wiscot
Interesting. I seem to recall, though, that people whined (not here, just in general) that too many TT's made for a boring race. The strong big riders would dominate the time trials, then just hang on for all of the other stages and nothing much else would happen.
@MangoDave
But that's where a well-balanced route comes in. The TT create gaps that maybe give big lads like Dumoulin an advantage over the climbers, who then have to attack in the mountains to shake off said big lads. Dumoulin struggled mightily the last few days in the Giro but came through. In another scenario he might not have held on. Imagine if there had been one more mountain stage after the last TT in the Giro? What racing we would have seen. Currently, we get mountain stage after mountain stage, many of which get a bit boring as the big names mark each other out of the game - Mt Etna stage this year being a great example. Look at the racing on Saturday's Giro stage. That was incredible as the parcours had been made so that the perfect scenario emerged - the top 5 basically being up for grabs.
It also puts more emphasis on the rider AND the team.