The Giro goes to Slovenia, then Italy, then Slovenia, then Italy and then there’s a finish in Slovenia for the sprinters.
Purple reign: a lively stage that finished well ahead of schedule. It was windy at the start and a nervous bunch was lined out. Ineos set up an Egan Bernal attack on the San Giovanni climb, a surprise move that heightened the pace further, it didn’t come to anything but it’s notable that he’s trying.
Off the final descent into Vicenza Mathias Vacek and Romain Bardet slipped away, aided by Mads Pedersen behind trying to slow the peloton. But UAE and Visma led the chase and we got an uphill sprint. Pedersen launched and Wout van Aert tried to match him but just couldn’t get on terms, a fourth win for the Dane. Defeated, Van Aert brings generosity for if the Belgian wasn’t here the battle here would not be as illustrious.
Pedersen is now so far ahead in the points competition on 227 points that if second-placed Olav Kooij wins two more stages at 50 points each and Pedersen failed to score a single point then he still stays in ciclamino.
Hustling for time bonuses, Isaac del Toro extended his overall lead by five seconds on Ayuso, nine on Tiberi in third. Molti pochi fanno un assai, little things add up as they say, and while the Alps can subtract minutes, for now the 21 year old is getting it all right.
The Route: 195km and 1,100m of vertical gain. There’s 150km before the race crosses into Slovenia and goes into the Brda hills and their vineyards. The climb here is gentle, often no more than 4.5%.
The Finish: a 13.8km finishing circuit that deliberately crosses the Italo-Slovenian border twice each time, there are almost two laps to do as the race enters the circuit just after the finish line.
There’s a climb on the circuit, 800m of 7% and it’s almost a straight line up so plenty of chance for the sprinters to stay on a good wheel.
The Contenders: Olav Kooij (Visma-LAB) is intrinsically fast and has the best lead-out. Alpecin-Deceuncink can deliver Kaden Groves too. Casper Van Uden (Picnic-PostNL) is the other pick.
There are more sprinters of course but it’s not easy to get past this trio. Paul Magnier (Soudal-Quickstep) had a mechanical two days ago so could recover.
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Kooij |
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Groves, Van Uden |
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Magnier |
Weather: 21°C and the chance of rain.
TV: KM0 is at 12.55 and the finish is forecast for 17.15 CEST.
Postcard from Nova Gorica
The Treaty of Paris in 1947 awarded the city of Gorizia to Italy, so Yugoslavia founded Nova Gorica, “new Gorica” on its side of the border. This explains a lot of the modernist architecture here, for some it’s Le Corbusier derived, others it’s brutalist. The border has the a fixture, a defining issue. Indeed for years this where the “Iron Curtain” hung. But today it’s not even a veil, the curtain has been lifted.
When Slovenia became an independent nation in 1991 the GDP per capita was two thirds of that of Italy according to the World Bank’s data. Now it’s almost closed the gap at 93% after Italy’s number grew by 2.5 times and Slovenia has caught up 4.25 times, these are crude measures but illustrate how the standard of living has become comparable on each sides. Many Slovenians go to Italy for food, not just because it’s Italian but because Italy has VAT of 4% on food; Slovenian wines can be cheaper in Italy. Italians go the other way in their cars where fuel is about 20 cents cheaper per litre, also thanks to lower taxes.
Today’s finishing circuit threads through the streets of Gorizia and Nova Gorica and back to celebrate the two cities in unison, they are jointly hosting the “European capital of culture” for 2025. The course has two border crossings per lap, as if there is no border today… although in practical terms this does mean pinch-points for the peloton, hopefully the passage is symbolically uneventful.
For all this change and convenience there is one remaining obstacle: language. On one side Italian as a romance language; the other the Slavic tongue of Slovenian. If only it was as easy to skip the language barrier.
At least they more or less stick with the Latin alphabet.
True but you can cross the border on a ride with some Euros in your pocket and it all feels so easy, you can see the roadside ad hoardings change but then if you stop for a drink or snack suddenly it hits, but everyone gets by of course. A pity almost that today’s stage doesn’t go much further, there are some nice roads to explore.
Isaac Del Torro is looking more and more like he has a good chance of going all the way. Yes we have seen riders look as if the race is heading their way before everything changes, sure there will be much discussion of the Finestre, but not sure any of the other riders here have the form to take it back. Juan Ayuso seems a bit muted, Antonio Tiberi would probably settle for the podium, cant see Simon Yates elbowing his way through, Primoz Roglic seems a percentage or two down on where he was, Egan Bernal looks back to somewhere near his best but lost too much time in the TT. Maybe there will be a pothole or unfortunate mechanical and the weather seems a bit unsettled but just get a feeling we will see a Mexican winner.
It is not impossible, but it reminds me a bit of Simon Yates in 2018 Giro dominating the semi-difficult stuff just to completely crack in the final high mountains. Since the last week is completely different than the “easy” first two weeks, Del Toro could easily finish outside of top ten, as he has not proven himself in the high mountains yet. My bet is on Ayuso, though the knee injury made this bet more uncertain.
“has not proven himself in the high mountains yet”
You have no idea how and where Del Toro won the Tour de L’Avenir”, do you?
Guess you didn’t you know about this race at all
Del Toro established himself with the best in the U23 ranks, even as a teenager, but at the pro level… not yet. His team have said he’s got a great 20 minutes power, the question will be does he have similar for 40 minutes too? This makes things interesting to watch.
I completely agree. He’s effectively leading a 1.5 Tirreno Adriatico at the moment. Let’s see how he goes in a WT peloton in the high mountains, day after day. He looks good but so did Yates a while ago as the poster above said.
I agree he’s looking great but it’s also only his 2nd grand tour: he finished 37th on GC in Vuelta last year. I can’t recall how he fared then in the third week or if he had to burn himself out much on team duties (it’s notable that UAE didn’t have much impact on GC: Sivakov was their top rider, in 9th, suggesting del Toro wouldn’t have had much teamwork to do?).
Can anyone recall how del Toro was looking in that third week? It’s important given how hard the stages are next week; very different to what’s been negotiated so far. So, plenty of opportunities for total shake up of the GC.
He was very active in the final week in what was, by their standards, a disappointing race for UAE. He was in the break on stages 14, 16 (where he finished 6th at Cavadonga) and 19. Obviously riding for GC is very different, but being that active that deep into the race suggests he has the ability to recover that is essential for a GC rider.
He finished twoandahalfminute ahead of a certain “Roglic” in a final week on Covadonga. What else do you need to know and can’t lookup yourself?
https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/vuelta-a-espana/2024/stage-16
Er Phil, you know Del Toro went in the breakaway that day, he didn’t out-climb Roglič, right? He was outclimbed by Ion Izagirrre / but he was working for Soler who won the stage.
I hope. Here he is giving an interview at 15 years old. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJ_8psmJ78a/?igsh=dHF6eGFraXVtMmd3
It is as if Roglic is trying to keep out of sight … and the team jerseys help. He is either still bruised or storing away the acorns. Who knows but the loss of Hindley was a major blow.
What a waste of a stage. Designing something like this in that particular region is criminal. And on a weekend as well! Truly unbelievable.
Agree it’s underwhelming in itself, but if it helps recovery for GC and stage hunters then it could allow more action next week 🤞🤞🤞
You mean three flattish stages hadn’t been enough, so you really needed a breakaway stage on Sunday and this useless thing today? With a rest day on Monday? I really really hope that Ineos or EF or even Trek organise some good fireworks for Sunday, because otherwise this whole part of the course design makes absolutely no sense. And they should care about TV ratings, too. People watch during the weekend and watch if there are mountains… how the stage actually turns out to be matters relatively less.
It’s unfortunate that Rivera is a DNS today. Since he’s been important in most of Bernal’s attack attempts so far, I wonder if his abscence will reduce any potential Ineos fireworks tomorrow & into next week.
Always an interesting subject in cycling… of course the DSs will give orders and normally the cyclists will act accordingly as good pros, but how deep you’ll go (or even you might *be able* to go) as a gregario depends on your level of actual commitment, which, on turn, often depends on personal relationships within the athletes and the team. Not always like that, but it often is. Nowadays, look for hints in social media videos published on the rest day
^___^
For once, you’re not exaggerating, “criminal” is the word…!
(I *am* exaggerating, of course, but hey you get my point)
Italian fans are voting if this is actually the *absolute worst* penultimate weekend in the whole Giro history. Personally, I won’t check, but its chances look extremely high.
(In terms of route on paper, obviously – as I said, random events can turn any bad course in a great race)
I recall when Mr. Ring posted the stage profiles that you called out this section of the race for relative lack of interest, and it seems to be as predicted. One difficult climb at/near the finish during the second week would have made a massive difference.
They already wasted San Pellegrino in Alpe, tomorrow they will waste Monte Grappa. And don’t get me started on the Bormio stage.
It’s almost like the organisers saw Pogacar dominate the Giro and Tour last year and were terrified someone would do the same. Its like they realised people take the most time in long time trials and on long and/or steep climbs, so they decided not to have any.
It was interesting that Del Toro and Ayuso sprinted against each other for some bonus seconds yesterday. If Del Toro is just having a bit of a lark and fully expecting to collapse in the last week surely he wouldn’t bother with bonus seconds at all.
I agree that Roglic has been very much in the background so far. He reminds me a bit of a dad out on a bike ride with his kids, watching them mess about.
Its just occurred to me that bonus seconds, of which there seems to be an absolute truck load in this Giro, are the new time trial. Previously at this stage of a Grand Tour you would have someone riding high off the back of taking time in about 100km’s worth of prologue, team time trial and individual time trial, and everyone would be wondering whether they can hold it together in the mountains. I feel like Wiggins at the 2012 Tour was probably the last example of that, though Gabriele will probably correct me. Nowadays its jumpy little punchy climbers who have popped up taking fairly randomly placed bonus seconds. I’m not saying I prefer either, just highlighting it. Though I would like to see a good 100km team time trial slung in a grand tour, just to mix it up a bit.
Nice point.
Not the sort of pure ol’ TDF traditionalism you hint at (2012 was so out of its time that it was clear it had been built on purpose for a specific result), but Dumoulin’s GTs had a pinch of that. He could also sum up time and bonuses from being able to produce violent efforts on the shorter monoclimbs you found typically in the first week, but the bulk of his advantage came obviously from ITTs (over 2 mins on Nibali, 3 mins on Quintana just in that single st. 10 at the 2017 Giro). Then, come the third week, he often found himself on the back foot (not as much as Wiggo, of course) and had to defend in longer mountain marathons with multiple climbs, when fondo mattered more.
Evenepoel at the 2022 Vuelta was also a bit like that.
Yet, as I noticed above, over 45 kms ITTs are disappearing; and as inrng pointed out, this season has the least ITT kms across the 3 GTs, like, ever. And whatismore, they’re trends, not contingent combinations of events. I’d also prefer some more variety. The paradox is that the Giro has slowly become the last reservoir where you can sometime find a decent quantity of ITT kms.
Indeed – and one could hardly suggest that a challenging TT would be less exciting than this monstrosity served to us on Saturday (prime time viewing). Lucca to Pisa was an amazing spectacle for non-cycling tourists and purists. Why not a TT near Verona, Lake Iseo and Franciacorta if the Giro is in that region instead?
An important reason for the decline in TT is that they tend to get a smaller TV audience than mass-start stages. Mountain stages get the highest audience, so this is why over the last 30 years there has been an increase in these types of stages.
Yes.
However, when intelligently placed, they can produce better figures.
For example, finishing with an ITT on st. 21 gets normally better overall viewing figures than the sprint parade. RCS discovered that on weekends ITTs score better, so if you’re *not* placing there sterrati, hills, middle or high mountains (which is crazy but it happened, in order to showcase a city with a lot of roadside public), then an ITT can work equally or better. This isn’t true in any other working day.
Finally, the first 2 stages tend to get poor figures, and placing an ITT there (weekend) can even improve figures, or at least avoid losing much.
RedBull/Bora have been most notable by their absence. I suppose we’ll get to know how things are with Ayuso, Roglic and other GC guys after Sunday. Bernal and Carapaz have been a little adventurous, but it all feels like a waiting game.
Pedersen does it again and justifies Trek’s decison to send him to the Giro, although good to see Van Aert push him all the way.
Very weak route (and planning), but the riders has certainly made up for that. Most open race for years. What a relief from the bore last year.
Kudos Asgreen for a phenomenal attititude and grit today!
Plenty of criticism above about the route but today’s finish was thrilling (if, partly, for unfortunate reasons) and the final week is now very nicely set up.
It seems one lesson consistently forgotten by cycling fans is to not jump to conclusions: “the stage will be boring”, “the GC is over” (in week one), etc…
My favourite thing about this sport is its complexity and unpredictability. Looking forward to seeing how this Giro plays out!