Posted May 3, 20214 yr Welcome to the Giro d’Italia discussion thread! With the first Grand Tour of the year getting going next Saturday I thought I’d create a separate space to discuss all the going-ons of the race as we track the route to Milan! Whether you’re watching every second of the action, just catching up when you can or even just hearing the results through the grapevine you’re most welcome to post in here. UK Live coverage will be on Eurosport and S4C (if you fancy commentary in Welsh) with a handy highlights show on Quest at 7pm every evening.
May 3, 20214 yr Author Who are the contenders? Egan Bernal – Winner of the 2019 Tour de France and spent his first few years as a professional in Italy so will know some of the roads. Will have the strongest team (Ineos) around him although there are still concerns about his back given his diagnosis with scoliosis. Simon Yates – Winner of the 2018 Vuelta and has won a number of Giro stages, although hasn’t finished Top 10 in a Grand Tour since the 2019 Giro. Aleksandr Vlasov – Underperformed at last year’s Vuelta but constantly tipped as a dark horse; finished second at this year’s Paris-Nice and third in Tour of the Alps. Hugh Carthy – Looking to build on a surprise podium place at last year’s Vuelta, although his tour pedigree is still a work in progress. Joao Almeida – Held the Pink Jersey for 15 stages last year and still managed to finish fourth; will likely gain chunks of time in the time trials. Jai Hindley – Last year’s runner-up, equal on time with Geohegan-Hart going into the last day so definitely a contender although this year’s field will be significantly stronger. Mikel Landa, Pavel Sivakov, Bauke Mollema, Romain Bardet and Emmanuel Buchmann will also be outside chances for the win.
May 3, 20214 yr Author Prediction Card: (fill in as much or as little as you’d like!) GC Top 5: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Other Jerseys: Blue (Mountains) Jersey: Cyclamen (Sprinters/Points) Jersey: White (Young riders) Jersey: Team Classification: Combativity Award: How much time will separate the Top 2?
May 3, 20214 yr Fantastic presentation here, Pete, :) I'll fill in my predictions later mate. And the form guide is brilliant.
May 3, 20214 yr Author Cheers Mack! Here's my shot at predictions: GC Top 5: 1. Simon Yates 2. Jai Hindley 3. Aleksandr Vlasov 4. Joao Almeida 5. Pavel Sivakov (going out on a limb here and saying that Bernal will pull out midway through the race and Sivakov will get the chance to race for himself) Other Jerseys: Blue (Mountains) Jersey: Ruben Guerreiro Cyclamen (Sprinters/Points) Jersey: Armaud Demare White (Young riders) Jersey: Jai Hindley Team Classification: Movistar Combativity Award: Romain Bardet (although literally could be anyone) How much time will separate the Top 2? 51 seconds
May 3, 20214 yr GC Top 5: 1. Simon Yates 2. Joao Almeida 3. Aleksandr Vlasov 4. Hugh Carthy 5. Pavel Sivakov Other Jerseys: Blue (Mountains) Jersey: Ruben Guerreiro Cyclamen (Sprinters/Points) Jersey: Armaud Demare White (Young riders) Jersey: Joao Almeida Team Classification: Movistar Combativity Award: Romain Bardet (although literally could be anyone) How much time will separate the Top 2? 1 minute and 11 seconds
May 3, 20214 yr Author ^ I think your GC prediction would put Almeida in the white jersey Mack! Don't worry, it's an easy thing to miss ^_^
May 7, 20214 yr Author One day to go! Stage 1 is a flat 8km time trial so shouldn't produce too many gaps but should still be exciting to watch.
May 7, 20214 yr One day to go! Stage 1 is a flat 8km time trial so shouldn't produce too many gaps but should still be exciting to watch. Ooh thanks for the reminder!
May 8, 20214 yr Author The opening time trial is won - unsurprisingly - by the current World Time Trial Champion, Filippo Ganna. Almeida fares the best out of the contenders, no-one losing significant amounts of time though. Fairly standard stage!
May 9, 20214 yr Giro d'Italia stage one results 1. Filippo Ganna (Ita) Ineos Grenadiers 8mins 47secs 2. Edoardo Affini (Ita) Jumbo-Visma +10secs 3. Tobias Foss (Nor) Jumbo - Visma +13secs 4. Joao Almeida (Por) Deceuninck - Quick-Step +17secs 5. Remi Cavagna (Fra) Deceuninck - Quick-Step +18secs 6. Jos van Emden (Ned) Jumbo - Visma same time 7. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Deceuninck - Quick-Step +19secs 8. Max Walscheid (Ger) Team Qhubeka - Assos same time 9. Matthias Bandle (Aut) Israel Start-Up Nation +22secs 10. Gianni Moscon (Ita) Ineos Grenadiers +23secs
May 9, 20214 yr They are heading in to Novara today for the finish on S2 (HOT promo for NovaraMedia right there!) My friend is going on a cycling holiday to Italy in September so I'm going to be incredibly jealous when watching this time round. Bit of a flat stage though today, wonder if Peter Sagan can take it.. probably not.
May 10, 20214 yr Author Turns out to be Tim Merlier taking the first sprint stage on his Grand Tour debut! And even more amazingly, Taco Van der Hoorn takes Stage 3 from a breakaway on a stage which was pretty much a nailed-on bunch sprint :o my heart was in my mouth in that last 100m, delighted for him. All of that means Ganna remains in yellow, 16 seconds over Tobias Foss in second.
May 11, 20214 yr Author Well who knows what happened on today's stage because Quest have decided they'd rather show the highlights of Stage 1 again instead :mellow:
May 11, 20214 yr Author A shame as it looks like it was an incredibly exciting stage from the short highlights video on Youtube :( Joe Dombrowski takes the win from a breakaway, Alessandro Di Marchi takes second which is enough for the pink jersey. He defeinitely deserves it, even if there was no-one in the UK around to watch him get it! Bernal, Ciccone, Vlasov, Landa and Evenepoel are the strongest of the GC contenders. Almeida loses almost 6 minutes - looks like QuickStep are going to be riding for Evenepoel from now on!
May 11, 20214 yr GENERAL CLASSIFICATION AFTER STAGE FOUR 1. Alessandro De Marchi (Ita) Israel Start-Up Nation, at 13-50-44 2. Joe Dombrowski (USA) UAE Team Emirates, at 22s 3. Louis Vervaeke (Bel) Alpecin-Fenix, at 42s 4. Nelson Oliveira (Por) Movistar Team, at 48s 5. Attila Valter (Hun) Groupama-FDJ, at 1-00 6. Nicolas Edet (Fra) Cofidis, at 1-15 7. Aleksandr Vlasov (Rus) Astana-Premier Tech, at 1-24 8. Remco Evenepoel (Bel) Deceuninck - Quick-Step, at 1-28 9. Alberto Bettiol (Ita) EF Education-Nippo, at 1-37 10. Hugh Carthy (GBr) Ineos Grenadiers, at 1-39
May 12, 20214 yr Author A day plagued by crashes today unfortunately - Sivakov was the first to crash and loses 13 minutes, Landa crashed into a traffic island and is out of the race, he really looked awful so hope he's okay :( Joe Dombrowski who was in second place also lost time in the Landa crash but wasn't as much as a contender as the other two.
May 13, 20214 yr Author Fab stage to watch today! Gino Mader takes the win from the breakaway a few seconds ahead of the leading group, delighted for him after he was pipped to the post in Paris-Nice. Bernal, Ciccone, Evenepoel and Dan Martin finish in the first group of favourites (three of who I didn't even mention in my list of contenders whoops!) Simon Yates finished in the third group along with Hungarian rider Atilla Valter who does enough to take the pink after Di Marchi lost over 15 minutes. I've never heard of Valter before, in fact I don't think I know any other Hungarian cyclists so good to see a different flag at the top of the rankings! One other thing to note is a rider being hit (thankfully only lightly) by a team car, another day where safety really does come into question.
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