The race begins its anti-clockwise lap of Italy with a 177km jaunt along the coast to Genova, much of it retracing part of the Milan-Sanremo route in reverse. A sprint finish looks likely.
The Route: the race bends inland with the climb to Testico, not categorized but familiar to many in the peloton as it features in the early season Trofeo Laigueglia. It’s a slog and will help a move go clear. They’ll be a scrap to breakaway because someone can take the mountains jersey today and get the first trip to the podium in the hope of turning a geographical molehill into a publicity mountain. The race drops back to the coast and reaches the port city of Genova where it does two 9.5km laps of the city.
The Finish: the urban circuit has an uphill finish line which rises at 2% for the final kilometre. There’s a left-hander and then the final 950m to the line along the wide road passing under the Ponte Monumentale archway before the the finish, a glorious finish to celebrate the Genoan city centre.
The Contenders: take your pick. The uphill finish won’t punish anyone, it’ll just offer a better way to discover who has the watts and the long finishing straight is a dragstip-style finish. There’s no obvious banker for today, especially as we’ve yet to see the contenders in action. André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) has the sprint pedigree but not everything was going his way in the recent Tour of Turkey. I like Moreno Hofland (Lotto-Jumbo) for the sprint too. Luka Mezgec got a few things wrong in the Tour de Romandie sprints but if he’s got the power on tap today’s long, linear finish should suit his style.
If you want more names, see the pre-race preview for sprinters.
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André Greipel, Moreno Hofland |
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Nizzolo, Modolo, Viviani, Pelucchi, Mezgec, Matthews |
Weather: sunny with temperatures of 24oC.
TV: the feed is supposed to start around 3.10pm with climb to Pratozanino timed for around 4.00pm and the finish is forecast for 5.15pm Euro time. Cyclingfans and steephill.tv both have links to pirate feeds with the latter also listing where you can view the race properly too.
The Giro is: La Gazzetta Dello Sport. The pink sports newspaper founded the race and today RCS Sport runs the event while RCS Media publishes the newspaper: separate silos of the same mini media conglomerate. La Gazzetta covers cycling all year and coverage reaches peak levels for the Giro. It’s a good read as a team of journalists offer extensive coverage. The reporting is often factual as opposed to analytical, for example “Aru wins” backed up with quotes and celebration rather than a take on how he won. It’s also got more scoops than a gelateria and won’t hesitate to print gossip sometimes. As big as the Giro is the cycling fan can save energy by reading the paper backwards in order to avoid the first 20 pages of football coverage. It is essential reading in May.
I think matthews for today.
That last pic is just gratuitous : )
Orica will take a bit of beating today. No chance they’ll be allowed to get a man in the break so they’ll be working for most of the stage, but it doesn’t exactly look difficult.
Or maybe finally Gianni Meersman lands the GT sprint win he’s been due for a couple of years…
Read in flemish press that Boonen would like to try it.
Sounds like it suits powerhouses, so you’d have to think Greipel, Mezgec and Boonen would be up there. Hard to look past Greipel really
Will be really interesting to see where everyone is form wise in the sprints. Of going into a GT with the top half dozen all missing.
Agree that Greipel should be the pick… But he’s seemed a little slimmed down of late and might not have quire the power advantage of old.
Will say Modolo, but mostly as it suits my fantasy team
The Giro has the best eye candy bar none!
No roundup of Day 1?
Dont mean to sound ungreatful – thank you for all the work in the previews and the rest of the blog.
Some people are just never satisfied!
Nizzolo will contest it but Greipel’s surely the man for an early straightforward sprint.
Does anyone know if SKY is actually doing this?
“RG: Richie posted on Twitter a picture of the interior of a double pop-out motor home that he will sleep in during the race. What is the reason behind this?
TK: We are exploring some opportunities around how we operate and testing some things during this race. It is part of that pilot project. We will keep a room for him in the hotel in this initial case, if the parking location isn’t great or if it’s noisy or because of security concern. It’s just a familiar environment he can go back to every night. He has got into a routine where he prefers to be on his own … skip desert and go back to his room after dinner, speak to Gemma [Nicole Barrett, his fiancé] on the phone and then get to bed early. Sleep and recovery is so important. But we will play it by ear. There may be times where he will prefer to have a roommate”
This from-http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tim-kerrison-porte-has-the-confidence-wiggins-showed-in-2012
I thought the rules specifically prohibited this kind of thing? And even it it works and is legal, does anyone else think it just looks bad? What are these people thinking?
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Bode Miller, the US ski racer used to do this. No one was happy with him either.
“What are these people thinking?”
Probably, “we don’t care that people think it looks bad, if it results in Richie being more rested for the next day”.