The stage goes to Napoli, the fourth visit in as many years.
Game, Set, Matera: a third stage win for Mads Pedersen. On paper the stage suited him, but UAE tried to put that paper in the shredder and upped the pace coming into Matera to the point where many riders were getting dropped, among them Dani Martinez and Christian Scaroni.
Pedersen was still there but as they climbed back up into Matera for the finish he started to lose ground, just as colleague Mathias Vacek continued to set the pace. Crucially he didn’t crack and as the roads levelled out he was back in contention, and back on Vacek’s wheel to launch his sprint. He won just ahead of Edoardo Zambanini and Tom Pidcock.
As well as the way things turned out, it’s worth noting this kind of stage with the hilly finish, the Giro is able to find this topographical variety in many places and so, even if here the same rider wins again, it’s lively to watch.
The Route: the longest stage of the Giro at 227Km with 2,600m of vertical gain. An uphill start out of Potenza and the Monte Caruzzo pass make for a hilly start.
The Finish: the race could speed into the city but perhaps to help make this the longest stage there’s a tour around the suburbs, a series of dusty roads through semi residential areas and light industry, this is no architecture tour until the finish when the course runs along the sea front.
The Contenders: this a likely sprint stage, the first half is hilly bordering on mountainous and if this was the third week the breakaway would have a great chance with fewer sprinters left, tired teams and desperation from teams still chasing a win. But the long, flat run into town should suit the sprinters’ teams to mow down any moves.
Casper van Uden (Picnic-PostNL) was overlooked the other day because he seemed likely to contest the win rather than take it but now he’s got a great chance at repeating thanks to a strong lead out. Still Olav Kooij (Visma-LAB) is probably the challenger but Van Aert is not offering many guarantees right now. Paul Magnier (Soudal-Quickstep) not looking convincing, Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck) should be a better challenger.
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Kooij |
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Van Uden, Groves |
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Magnier, Bennett, Pedersen, Fretin |
Weather: mainly cloudy, 22°C and with the chance of a shower towards the finish.
TV: KM0 is at and the finish is forecast for 17.15 CEST.
Postcard from Napoli
The city is famous for plenty, two notable examples are Vesuvius, the volcano that lurks across the bay and another is football team SSC Napoli. Both helpfully – tenuously – bring us to the subject of yellow cards. In football a foul can see a player given a yellow card as a warning, if they get another they are sent off the field of play. Pro cycling now has this and at any moment a commissaire could erupt from the sunroof of an official car and scold a rider and even send them home.
UCI rule 2.12.003 bis says commissaires can issue a yellow card “whenever the behaviour concerned is susceptible of causing a risk for safety” in World Tour and .Pro events and it can apply to all sorts of things, a sticky bottle or drafting a team car, dangerous riding and littering, particularly if a bottle bounces back into the peloton, all these cases are in the rulebook.
It works with UCI rule 2.12.007ter which states if a rider gets two yellow cards they are excluded or disqualified from the race. No commissaire will brandish a card for TV so it’s not theatrical but this doesn’t make it any less serious. Normally it takes a lot to get kicked off a race, but two relatively minor matters can now achieve this if they come with yellow cards.
As of this morning Max Kanter, Bram Welten, Martin Marcellusi, Kasper Asgreen and Francesco Busatto are on yellow cards at the Giro – the UCI keeps a register that helpfully is made public – so one more cartellino giallo and they’re going home.
Darren Rafferty had one too after he’d thrown a bidon away only for it to bounce back into the bunch but this was reviewed and instead Asgreen got the penalty. His case is instructive twice over. First, no rider launches a bidon into the bunch on purpose, if it bounces back it’s usually due to some freak event although anyone thinking of jettisoning a bottle may think even more about the technique but it shows it can happy to anyone. The second point is there is the chance to appeal or review.
For now the only exclusion is the media at the Vuelta Feminina last week when a moto rider for a photographer got a second yellow card on Stage 6 and so was excluded from the final stage. This is a serious penalty for someone trying to make a living; including the photographer.
But the riders are more visible. It makes for a “sword of Damocles” scenario in any stage race, particularly in a grand tour. Will the threat of exclusion alter behaviour? Possibly, probably, as a rider with a warning for headbutting in a sprint is unlikely to repeat it. But it’s one of those things that’s hard to tell. We can’t prove a negative, we won’t note the good behaviour of a rider not head-butting, you can’t see something that has not happened. The incidence of negative events probably isn’t sufficient to measure a before and after effect of this rule.
If a rider is sent home after two reckless incidents in a sprint finish the public might say they had it coming. But if it’s one dumb move and a bidon that bounces back then this can happen to anyone and it could be noisy, polemical even. Imagine a GC contender who gets a yellow card in the first week of the Tour de France, their every move will be watched.
Next, they will instate a sin bin as in rugby.
Lots of sprinters would be throwing bidons at the commissaires just in time to sit out the Alpe San Pellegrino in a few days’ time 😉
I’ve long thought that time penalties in cycling should be served by completing a motorsport style stop-and-hold during the race, not just by tweaking the results.
Get a 10 second penalty early on during a stage, stop at the 5km to go sign for 10 seconds.
Get a penalty handed down after the stage has finished, serve the penalty at the 5km sign the next day.
Yes, I agree with this. Get a penalty during the race, and then have to go to the commissaire’s car behind the peloton and wait for 10 seconds while dismounted. With a barrage to stop the rider getting back on easily. One of the problems now is there is no intermediate punishment between disqualification and nothing for infractions during the race. Hence usually the decision is nothing. For infractions during the sprint finale, then have the rider stop at the 3km-to-go sign for a count of 10 in the next sprint stage.
So basically a completely random penalty spectacle that could result in no time loss, loss of a few seconds or minutes, or of any GC chance whatsoever, depending on rider and race circumstance?
That’s not a well thought through idea. The punishment is likely to far outweighs the crime in most cases.
If the bidon bounces back you,get a card, if it doesn’t, you don’t so it’s the outcome and not the act that is being penalized.
This opens the door to all sorts of accusations of inconsistent judgment.
Is there any “carry over” of cards or once the race is over is the slate wiped clean?
Yes, the piece was getting long for a postcard but if you get a third in 30 days it’s a 14 day suspension, so potentially someone thrown off the Tour could be sent home from the Vuelta; this could see teams checking the yellow card count for selection. Get six and there’s a 30 day suspension.
…”it’s the outcome and not the act that is being penalized.”
This is true for laws and convictions all over the world.
If you get caught driving through a residential area at 60 mph you might get a few points or even lose your license… if there happens to be a child crossing the road that you then can’t avoid due to your speed, then you’ll be looking at a stretch in prison.
Legal cases look at the (potential) harm caused as well as the actions that led to them.
Just on the Kanter relegation that many pundits didn’t agree with, early on yesterday’s stage just after the break was formed, RAI showed an overhead of another incident where Kanter nearly took out a Tudor rider. If that rider (it looked like Pluimers) had crashed, after the peloton would have crashed at those speeds. The Tudor rider was incensed enough to throw a flailing arm out at Max.
I’m not sure if everyone jumped the gun and assumed it was the Mads argy bargy or the jury saw both incidences??
*half the peloton!
Mathias Vacek is showing impressive form, especially yesterday he looked like the strongest rider.
How does the yellow card work for one day races?
A rider getting two in a one day race will be disqualified, ie deleted from the results.
It would be nice to see someone else win than Mads Pedersen but not sure the sprinters at the race are really up to it.
Just watched the highlights and found it extraordinary that Pedersen was able to make up the ground that he did and then sustain a sprint. He has really hut his straps this year.
Pedersen looked like he had a puncture or mechanical the way he dropped back, so being able to be work his way back and win, was extremely well done.
Roglic having a little dig promises well for the GC.
Mads explained in the interviews that he was simply on the limit and just couldn’t keep the pace anymore, but he knew that the last couple of kms were going to be easier so managing to keep contact while briefly breathing he’d have a second chance if he could push hard enough to get back to Vacek’s wheel, which he did. Of course, he also know in advance that the sprint as such would be much harder for him, but, well he just made it! In fact, Zambanini was coming back at double speed from a terrible positioning at the beginning of the sprint.
The way Pedersen moved back up about 30 places by dive-bombing a single corner was really quite impressive!
A high quality preview! Thanks!
I believe it should be Vuelta FemEnina, and that the I instead of the E is gallicism.
Most of the sprinters, except Groves and Pedersen, finished 14 minutes down yesterday. Perhaps they were saving their legs for today.
Don’t forget the UCI did some work with the riders before introducing the yellow cards system.
The main points the riders wanted addressed were inconsistency in approach by commissaires (so eg if a bidon comes back into the group the thrower should get a yellow card *every* time) and the safety issues around sprints (riders celebrating and lead outs dropping through the middle of the bunch).
So far that appears to be how the system has been implemented.
Mads is on fire. Peaking at the right time with an unbelievable team around him. His intelligence and experience yesterday knowing he would have enough time to drop back and recover and then the sheer power to get back to claim the win was just legendary.