Giro D'Italia 2015

[Fryer Tuck]

I’m surprised there isn’t anything up on this year’s Giro. Today's the big day. Ah well, better get something up.

Starting list: http://procyclingstats.com/race.php?id=149921&c=3


We’re back in Italy to start the 98th running of the Giro, and as usual, it looks to be a treat! We start at the Ligurian Coast, first going south, then making our way though some hilly stages, up into the Alps, and then we finish in Milan for the first time in two years.



This year’s Giro starts off with quite a difficult first week, including a mountain top finish in Stage 5. which will be a good indicator of form for the contenders. It also looks like that while there are a lot of mountains in this year’s Giro, there’s no true Queen stage in the Dolomites, nor many high mountains (2000m+). There’s quantity, but the quality is still present, with some well-made stages, especially the medium mountain stages. We will see early on what the form of the contenders will be like as they will be tested early.



Stage 14 will be critical as it’s a long ITT, the longest since 2009 if I recall correctly. There could be some large gaps here, which will leave the pure climbers a lot of work to do in the final week.



The obvious favourite is Alberto Contadour, but he’ll be facing good competition from Giro bridesmaid Rigoberto Uran, the guy that you want to support, despite his team in Richie Porte, and the local hopeful Fabio Aru.



That's the start. I'm sure someone more qualified than me can do the rest... if there is any interest...

 

[Hellgood]

Hopeful for Porte, would love for another Australian GC contender to emerge. Hopefully we'll see another Giro as successful for Australians as the last one - with the Giro now being showed live, it would be great for the growth of the sport here for another event to become as important as the TdF in the national consciousness.

Hard to see Contador not continuing to extend his dominance though. He may be keen to keep a bit in the tank so won't win by a street, but confident that he'll do enough.

 

[alfy!]

Giro cheat notes courtesy of Reddit.

 

[Hellgood]

Well that was a nice start! Gerrans in pink.

 

[blue gunslinger]

1st crash in giro - race starts now! He came he saw he concreted

 

[grouse mate]

Not sure what Matthew was doing in that finish and based on what Matt White said about the finish, I think the recon was a long way off being right.

 

[Vader]

Not sure what Matthew was doing in that finish and based on what Matt White said about the finish, I think the recon was a long way off being right.

Bling wasn't the only one who stuffed up the finish. Greipel made a mess of it as well.

Not sure how much of what Matt White said was actually truth, and how much was misinformation for the benefit of any other teams that might be listening (and yes, I know that SBS are doing their own commentary for the Australian market).

 

[grouse mate]

Bling wasn't the only one who stuffed up the finish. Greipel made a mess of it as well.

Not sure how much of what Matt White said was actually truth, and how much was misinformation for the benefit of any other teams that might be listening (and yes, I know that SBS are doing their own commentary for the Australian market).

Yeah I thought Greipel was gonna struggle coming from that far back, i think he was about 9th wheel with not much to go. Reckon Matthews should of just viewed it as an uphill finish and gone for it, the hesitation and looking for another wheel seemed to cost him a bit of speed.

 

[Vader]

Was interesting seeing the Costa Concordia, in the process of being dismantled. The commentators had no idea what they were looking at, thought it was just being repaired, until the caption appeared at the bottom of the footage. Experts in cycling maybe, not they didn't appear to know much about anything else.

 

[blue gunslinger]

Let chaos reign

 

[Vader]

How could any spectator be stupid enough to duck under the tape, ride onto the road and try to race alongside the peleton - causing 30 riders to crash in the process? How dumb do you have to be. I couldn't believe it when I read that a couple of riders were claiming that this actually happened, then I saw the video footage last night.

You often see people trying to pace themselves against the peleton, but they (almost) always do it safely. If the peleton is on the road, then they do it on a bike path running parallel, or in the other lanes of a dual carriageway. But to actually ride onto the same patch of bitumen as the peleton, which was doing 50+kph at the time.. that's just insane.

 

[Vader]

Bit of a weird stage last night. Can anyone explain why Saxo Tinkoff rode hell for leather the whole day, preventing the breakaway riders from having their time in the sun? They don't have the maglia rosa to protect. They don't have any sprinters, so they had no chance of actually winning the stage. There were no GC contenders in the breakaway, so there was no threat to their long term ambitions. It just made no sense.

I have no problem with them riding on the front of the peleton. It's the safest place to be, as we saw in Sunday night's crashfest. But why drive the pace so hard that the breakaway never led by more than a minute (at least not in the televised period)?

I know Oleg Tinkoff is/was royally pissed off at the team's lack of success so far this year, which is largely why Bjarne Riis was sacked. As a result their current DS is probably feeling the heat to provide results at the Giro. But they were never going to get a result yesterday, so why burn so many petrol tickets so early in the race?

In the end it was a good win by Matthews. The pure sprinters didn't get over the Cat2 climb with the peleton, so he had a fairly clear run to the line. Nice to see him replicating last year's performance, winning while wearing the pink.

Hope that Pozzovivo is OK. I looked on the Cycling News website, but they don't have any information regarding his condition. He took a nasty fall on the descent after the Cat2 climb and spent quite a while lying motionless on the road. I suspect that his helmet probably saved his life.

 

[Arsene Wenger]

Bit of a weird stage last night. Can anyone explain why Saxo Tinkoff rode hell for leather the whole day, preventing the breakaway riders from having their time in the sun? They don't have the maglia rosa to protect. They don't have any sprinters, so they had no chance of actually winning the stage. There were no GC contenders in the breakaway, so there was no threat to their long term ambitions. It just made no sense.

I have no problem with them riding on the front of the peleton. It's the safest place to be, as we saw in Sunday night's crashfest. But why drive the pace so hard that the breakaway never led by more than a minute (at least not in the televised period)?

I know Oleg Tinkoff is/was royally pissed off at the team's lack of success so far this year, which is largely why Bjarne Riis was sacked. As a result their current DS is probably feeling the heat to provide results at the Giro. But they were never going to get a result yesterday, so why burn so many petrol tickets so early in the race?

In the end it was a good win by Matthews. The pure sprinters didn't get over the Cat2 climb with the peleton, so he had a fairly clear run to the line. Nice to see him replicating last year's performance, winning while wearing the pink.

Hope that Pozzovivo is OK. I looked on the Cycling News website, but they don't have any information regarding his condition. He took a nasty fall on the descent after the Cat2 climb and spent quite a while lying motionless on the road. I suspect that his helmet probably saved his life.

Good post. I was also wondering what on eart Saxo were doing. They were stomping it on the front majority of the stage. Bizarre. Fk me though, how good is bling. He is kinda like Sagan but better, and and actually wins....

 

[Vader]

Good post. I was also wondering what on eart Saxo were doing. They were stomping it on the front majority of the stage. Bizarre. Fk me though, how good is bling. He is kinda like Sagan but better, and and actually wins....

Funny you should mention him. It was almost as if they were riding for Sagan. That stage would have suited him to a T. The only catch is, Sagan isn't in their Giro team...

 

[Arsene Wenger]

Funny you should mention him. It was almost as if they were riding for Sagan. That stage would have suited him to a T. The only catch is, Sagan isn't in their Giro team...

I know right? Sagan is busy coming second in California....

 

[grouse mate]

Led out by Gerro, gotta admire the team culture OGE have built up.

 

[Vader]

Led out by Gerro, gotta admire the team culture OGE have built up.

Clarke spent most of the day working in the lead group. He was one of the last riders caught by the peleton. Instead of sliding straight out the back of the peleton, he gave his all, driving it to ensure OGE had control and Matthews was well positioned. As you say, a great team culture.

 

[Freakie]

Pozz is apparently OK. Facial fractures and no memory (no surprising). It was horrible to watch, then that dumbass spectator goes and lifts his head up. I was almost yelling at the TV, NEVER move someone that has crashed like that.

I agree re Saxo, the only thing I can guess is they were testing out how many good troops Sky and Astana had after a hard stage. Silly way to do it, but Sky did show a few cracks and Astana had all 9 present. It will be interesting come stage 5 if saxo used to many tickets.

 

[Hellgood]

Thank god Pozzovivo seems ok. I remember the Weylandt incident four years ago (almost to the day) and that was utterly horrific to see on the vision.

With regard to Saxo's tactics, is it possible that they have worked a deal with one of the sprinters teams and call in the favour later on when the GC is on the line? Their team is extremely well equipped to handle the mountains and experienced enough to know where to make their efforts on the flat, but I guess any help would be appreciated come the last week?

Terrific stuff by Matthews and Green-Edge again. I'm not overly patriotic, but I love the fact that their introduction enables me to follow a team like football in a way.

 

[crazyman27]

Looking like Simon Clarke is a very good chance to take the Maglia Rosa tonight. Three different Aussies in the leaders jersey over four stages, talk about domination!

 

[blue gunslinger]

Good stage tonight - getting to tough stuff

 

[Mister B]

Brilliant ride by Clarke an Chavez despite Clarke's slight miscalculation of riders ahead of him. Would be nice if just before we lose the maglia rosa Chavez got a day in it.

 

[Vader]

Well that was a very entertaining stage. The race had already splintered into 3 groups by the time the coverage started and splintered even further once the 2 leading groups merged and de-merged.

OGE played a very smart game. Matthews was never going to be allowed to join the breakaway, so they sent Chavez & Clarke up the road instead. They did fall behind on a couple of the big climbs, but were able to rejoin the lead group by the time it went through the finish line for the first time. Clarke struggled up the final climb, but was only 100m behind the main group when they crossed the summit and easily caught them on the way back down. He was comfortably the fastest sprinter left in the group.

Congratulations to Davide Formolo, who won the stage, after attacking the lead group just before the start of the final climb. He rode away from a peleton being driven by Astana, in an attempt to isolate Contador, and was never caught.

Clarke did provide an amusing moment, when he raised his arms in victory as he crossed the finish line.. only to be told by another rider that he'd actually finished 2nd, with Formolo having soloed to victory 30 seconds earlier.

Saxo Tinkoff paid for the previous day's stupidity. Having burned far too many petrol tickets on a completely meaningless stage (as far as their ambitions were concerned), many of them couldn't handle the pace set by Astana on the big climbs and fell away, leaving Contador isolated. In the end only Kreuziger remained with him at the finish, the result of him spending most of the day up the road in the breakaway. Michael Rogers was the last of Contador's constant companions to let go on the 2nd to last climb. In contrast, Astana had 6 riders in the peleton as they crossed the finish line for the first time. They burned a few of them on the final climb, but by then their job was done.

There were 2 losers on last night's stage. Somewhat surprisingly, Rigoberto Uran was unable to keep the pace on the final climb, losing 42 seconds to Porte, Aru and Contador. Ryder Hesjedal came off even worse - he thought he'd take it easy on the 2nd last climb, only to see Astana drive the group away from him. He finished more than 5 minutes down, his GC hopes completely shattered (not that they were anything but a pipe dream anyway).

Clarke now holds the pink jersey, though it will be almost impossible for him to hold onto it after tonight's stage, which features a mountain top finish at Abetone, atop a 17km Cat2 climb. Tonight is when the big boys come out to play, their first real chance to see who has and hasn't brought their A-game. Clarke is the 3rd Australian and 3rd member of OGE to wear the pink in the first 4 days of the race. OGE could withdraw tomorrow and still have had an outstanding Giro.

 

[Richard Cranium]

Matt Keenan's an excitable bloke, isn't he?

 

[Vader]

Matt Keenan's an excitable bloke, isn't he?

Keenan's alright. I'm still wondering what Dave Matthews brings to the table. All he ever seems to do is echo Keenan's words straight back to him... when he's not talking about his own cycling career. Irritated me last night when he was talking about the peleton only having X distance to go, when X is the distance that the leader had to go and the peleton was several minutes (and several kilometers) behind. Not overly bright and doesn't add anything worthwhile to the coverage. SBS might be better off leaving Matt Keenan to commentate solo.