Giro D'Italia 2015

Who will win?

  • Alberto Contadour

    Votes: 5 50.0%

  • Rigoberto Uran

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Richie Porte

    Votes: 3 30.0%

  • Fabio Aru

    Votes: 2 20.0%

  • Other

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    10

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grouse mate said:
Back on the wheel change, this photo is from this years Roubaix, Sep Van Marcke's bike.

mavic1.jpg


No pro team rider is riding around on a $200 wheel like this. The story is that a spectator gave him the wheel after he punctured. Obviously the UCI weren't watching....
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Plus Contador took his helmet off in the middle of the peleton on a wet and dangerous stage and rode along for a while sans helmet. No sanction. The Italians are/were s**t scared of Porte smacking Aru IMO.
 
Dropping like flies tonight. Absolute carnage on the descent.
 

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I watched the sbs review and agree how did the blokes in Paris roubaix get away with no punishment after risking lives with a train about to cross and this incident with Porte is put up as rules are rules
 
blue gunslinger said:
I watched the sbs review and agree how did the blokes in Paris roubaix get away with no punishment after risking lives with a train about to cross and this incident with Porte is put up as rules are rules
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Probably because they would have had to disqualify 1/3 of the peleton, maybe even more. Also, it would have required some serious video analysis to ensure that they pinged all of the riders who went through the barriers (and none who didn't).
 
Last night's stage was a rare one, by the standards of the 2015 Giro. The breakaway didn't survive to reach the finish ahead of the peleton.

There was no shortage of carnage on the stage, with riders falling over left right and centre. The weather conditions didn't help, with the roads sometimes being wet, sometimes dry and sometimes a mixture of the two (the trickiest conditions of all). Things weren't helped by the tight, twisty and relatively steep descents that the course took them down. As far as Australians are concerned, the biggest victim was Simon Gerrans, who is apparently set to withdraw as a result of his fall.

The race set off at a cracking pace, averaging 51kph for the first 75km, until the "early" breakaway was finally allowed to go off the front. They never had much leeway though and were caught again with more than 40km remaining on the stage. This prompted a number of solo attacks, on both the climbs and descents, all of which were ultimately unsuccessful. The last rider caught was Astana's Tanel Kangert, who was rounded up 300m from the finish.

With the finish at the top of a short but steep climb, Gerrans and Gilbert were the favourites for the stage. With Gerrans having fallen, Gilbert was the red hot favourite and BMC worked hard on the front to give him every opportunity to win. He didn't let them down. Gilbert accelerated away from the peleton in the last 300m, when the slope hit 11%, riding to a comfortable victory with a 3 second time gap over 2nd place.

The big winner on the stage was Alberto Contador, who crossed the line 2nd. He picked up a 6 second time bonus in the process. Even better for him, was the fact that Aru struggled on the climb and lost a further 8 seconds as a result. Contador's lead in the GC was thus extended from 3 seconds to 17. Porte finished 3 seconds down on Contador, losing 9 seconds in total - not that it really matters, given that he's already more than 3 minutes behind.
 
Contador is a boss. Richie is having a terrible Giro unfortunately.
 

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Looks like a ripper stage tonight but the GC guys may want to take it easy after a tough TT. Will Richie get a long leash now to chase a stage win? He may have put the cue in the rack for the GC and taken the TT easy yesterday... or I could just be making excuses for his s**t form.
 
Contador picked up not 1 but 2 time bonuses on the stage - 2 seconds at the intermediate sprint point just before the final climb, 2 more for being 3rd across the finish line. He also picked up another 1 second due to the time gap between himself and Aru.

Landa might be the strongest climber in the Astana team, but he's already 4:46 behind Contador, so I doubt that Contador would overly care about him picking up a few seconds here and there.

Astana barely saved their UCI team license and the first thing they do is put in a blatantly pharmaceutically enhanced performance like this - strongly reminiscent of the UK Postal Tour de France teams from 2012 & 2013. I don't know what they're on, but it's obviously good stuff and they're obviously very coonfident that testing won't be able to pick it up and it won't show up in the blood passport either.
 
Vader said:
Couldn't believe how long the commentators kept making excuses for Richie. You can't blame the wind when the likes of Aru, Cataldo & Konig are all putting time into him.

Great ride from Contador. Poor from Richie. Aru pretty much as expected. Uran slow, obviously still affected by illness.
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Richie has again shown that he is, at best, a one week tour contender. I like the bloke, and he has been in great nick in the leadup. Sure, he had some bad luck, but so has Contador, but to perform so poorly in the TT and then last night is not good enough and a bit weak to be honest. Its like he has chucked the towell in.
 
Arsene Wenger said:
Richie has again shown that he is, at best, a one week tour contender. I like the bloke, and he has been in great nick in the leadup. Sure, he had some bad luck, but so has Contador, but to perform so poorly in the TT and then last night is not good enough and a bit weak to be honest. Its like he has chucked the towell in.
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From what they were saying he injured his hip & knee in the fall on Stage 13 - the one 3.2km from the finish, the day before the ITT. He was riding just fine before that happened.

Honestly, I don't know where he stands as a GT rider. This was the first time he's ever been Team Leader in at GT and he's just had no luck at all. First the puncture, resulting in a 2-min penalty, then he lost more time when he came off as the result of someone else's crash.

Depends on how much of his poor form over the last 2 nights is injury-induce, and only he & UK Postal can really answer that question.
 
Vader said:
From what they were saying he injured his hip & knee in the fall on Stage 13 - the one 3.2km from the finish, the day before the ITT. He was riding just fine before that happened.

Honestly, I don't know where he stands as a GT rider. This was the first time he's ever been Team Leader in at GT and he's just had no luck at all. First the puncture, resulting in a 2-min penalty, then he lost more time when he came off as the result of someone else's crash.

Depends on how much of his poor form over the last 2 nights is injury-induce, and only he & UK Postal can really answer that question.
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Maybe I am being harsh and not truly appreciating the fall he had and what this has done to his body.

For me, th emost astonishing thing out of the Giro is Astana's pure disregard for the whole doping saga. They are so doped up its not funny and its akin to the old US POstal days....
 
Arsene Wenger said:
Maybe I am being harsh and not truly appreciating the fall he had and what this has done to his body.

For me, th emost astonishing thing out of the Giro is Astana's pure disregard for the whole doping saga. They are so doped up its not funny and its akin to the old US POstal days....
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To borrow Lance Armstrong's words from Tyler Hamilton's book - they're "not normal".
 
Astana's performance in the first week was enough to raise eyebrows but last night was something else. 5 guys on the front when every other team had 1 rider until Sky dropped 1 guy back from the break. That is some unhuman-like performance from a bunch of guys all wearing the same colour. Greg Henderson should be applauded rather than sued.
 
grouse mate said:
Astana's performance in the first week was enough to raise eyebrows but last night was something else. 5 guys on the front when every other team had 1 rider until Sky dropped 1 guy back from the break. That is some unhuman-like performance from a bunch of guys all wearing the same colour. Greg Henderson should be applauded rather than sued.
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Just like the old US Postal team under Lance, or UK Postal under Wiggins & Froome. All doped up to the eyeballs.
 
Can't wait to see what Astana and Nibali bring to the tour! Contador, Nairo, Nibali and Froome! will be a sight
 
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