A fun stage awaits with a series of sharp climbs in the finish. This is what a Giro stage should look like, offering lively racing that is an expression of the land, scenery and architecture.
Stage 7 Review: the stage win for Jonas Vingegaard and in the predicted manner: attacking with 5km to go to shake everyone off his wheel, the difficulty of the slope heightened by a stiff wind that was at times making riders climb in echelon formation.
If it went to plan, the script still had some twists. The first surprise was Giulio Pellizzari who was able to match the Dane. Vingegaard was flustered, turning back several times to find the Italian still on his wheel. The second surprise was that Pellizzari cracked after a kilometre, perhaps no shock but he must have known he was in the red but persisted and went deep into a crimson moment and almost stalled on the slope, “I was wrong” he said at the finish. The third surprise was Felix Gall who darted past Pellizzari and finished second, at only 13 seconds behind Vingegaard when the Dane would have been expected to take more time.
Only ten riders were within two minutes of Vingegaard. Further down, Damiano Caruso and Egan Bernal lost almost three minutes, Jan Christen over four minutes and Enric Mas close to six minutes.
It leaves Vingegaard in the perfect place. Afonso Eulalio stays in pink with three minutes. We saw the Bahrain team work yesterday when they did not have to; this implies they will work more and this eases the load on Visma. Plus if Gall was surprisingly close, he’s a fragile rider at risk of trouble on descents, in crosswinds, and if he can ace these there’s the 40km time trial next week where he will certainly lose time. Even better for Vingegaard was not only did he crack Pellizzari, Jai Hindley sprinted away from his colleague in the finishing straight rather than tow him to the line. Everything is going to plan for Vingegaard.
The Route: a ride out of Chieti and then a spin up the coast to the intermediate sprint. After this the race heads into the hills.
- the Montefiore climb is 10km at 3.6% but the first half is full of 5-6% and there’s a small descent midway you don’t see on the profile
- Monterubbiano is 6km at 5.1% but with plenty of 6-8% ramps. Like many roads in the Marche region there’s little engineering, instead the road takes the contour of the terrain with more changes in pitch than a novice saxophone player
- the climb to Fermo is 3km at 5% with plenty of 8%
- the sharp, narrow ramp to the Red Bull point
- The climb back from the sea to Capodarco
The Finish: the profile above says plenty but this is a run past the city walls and then a ride into the old town complete with cobbles and flagstones in town. Having lamented the other day that too many Giro stages finish out of town and don’t show off the host towns today does it right.
The Contenders: a good day for the breakaway. Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto-Intermarché) is out of the GC race and good on a course like this. Likewise Jan Christen (UAE) who can focus on stages now, with Jhonatan Narvaez and obvious pick too. Local rider Gianmarco Garofoli (Soudal-Quickstep) is suited but a win would be a surprise.
Giulio Ciccone (Lidl-Trek) might be the best suited to the course and the finish but he’s eighth overall, he won’t get much room to go in the breakaway with the likes of Netcompany-Ineos, Tudor and Jayco needing to contain him. Christian Scaroni (XDS-Astana) is 11th overall and has more room.
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Narvaez, Christen, Scaroni |
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Ciccone, Sheffield, Van Eetvelt |
Weather: sunshine on the coast but rain coming in later with a top temperature of 18°C in the hills.
TV: KM0 is at 1.35pm and the finish is forecast for 5.15pm CEST. Tune in 3.30pm for the start of the hills.
Postcard from Fermo
What have Jai Hindley, Filippo Zana and Einer Rubio got in common? They’re all riding the Giro today but if you want a hint: today they’ll return to Capodarco.
The answer is they’re all winners of the GP Capodarco, a one day Under-23 race held every August. The format is simple, a flat loop to the Lido di Fermo, the seaside, before switching to laps around the town of Capodarco including a climb that’s 3.5km long at 6%. On the final lap the race heads for the historic old town and finishes with a wall climb that’s got a long section at 18%. Throw 150 riders into this and the strongest emerge; it’s not the Tour de l’Avenir but is selective.
Much is made of Italy’s chronic lack of a World Tour team, and now the looming concern is the next level down is shrivelling too. We have Polti-Malta and Bardiani in the Giro but as things stand on the UCI rankings Bardiani aren’t going to be eligible for the Giro next year; although Solution Tech is. One in, one out? Yes but Bardiani have brought on young riders like Pellizzari and Pinarello while Solution Tech is more mercenary, hiring riders to score points and probably less sustainable.
Where Italian cycling still thrives is the Under-23 scene. The majority of U23 one-day international races are in Italy, plus two of the five stage races with the Giro Next Gen and the Giro della Valle d’Aosta as well. Italy has 13 Continental teams, second only to China.
It’s not all rosy but it is holding up. The Italian amateur scene has been so prolific that both the Australian and British cycling federations have created bases to offer their riders a program of racing that they can’t get domestically. One reason for the rise of Slovenian cycling has been the ease of crossing the border to race in Italy and find a calendar of events to suit. The most recent winner of the GP Capodarco? Slovenia’s Jakob Omrzel, now aged 20 and riding for Bahrain.
I amnit sure Vingegaard was expecting second place to be only 12 seconds behind.
True but he’d be more worried if it Pellizzari, Gee-West or Arensman who are better in the TT. Gall is clearly in good shape and will probably surprise in the TT as well but in a relative sense, still bound to lose a chunk of time to the Dane.
Decathlon seem to have found a good prep stint, no doubt. Rowe will feel at home.
Its hard to see why Bardiani does not have a large enough budget to hire at least a couple of extra riders able to consistently score points to keep in the top 30. They don’t have to be winners. Just consistent top 10 riders in middle class races (GC or one day races).
A practically guaranteed entry into a grand tour must mean good visibility in Italian circles for a team this size and help attract sponsorship. A lot of other teams don’t have this advantage.
Is there something holding them back or am I to optimistic.
They’ve ended up with an Uzbek co-sponsor which is odd but why not? Only they have a strong regional presence in Emilia-Romagna and this area has a lot of good Italian companies. Now can’t see them linking up with the likes of Ferrari or Lamborghini but there are food brands and agricultural machinery firms (Bardiani makes valves and pumps for food assembly lines, think pipes of tomato sauce being pumped into cans, or water and dough pumped into shaping machines before drying, that’s them). Some more cash and they could hold onto the likes of Pellizzari and Pinarello for one more year. But now in a Catch-22 scenario where they may not be in the Giro next year so who would back them?
It’s the very root of their model being put under pressure.
Even in their original model, anyway, it makes no sense for Pellizzari to stay there one more year once he’s reached the point in his development where he’s ready for WT. Actually, some athletes probably lost occasions or didn’t develop fully because they opted for staying there longer than they should have had, be it only for appreciable human reasons like gratitude etc. Think especially Colbrelli, but probably also Battaglin or Modolo could have gone a whole different path had they moved over a couple of seasons before they eventually did.
The team worked perfectly as a safe space where athletes could *wait for “natural” psychological and physical maturation* before the possible jump to the WT, which is only where the necessary technical and athletical further steps could be done to discover what an athlete’s place in the peloton ends up being: co-captain, 2nd sword, quality support, gregario, break man, point harvester etc.
Think Ciccone and the above named Pellizzari or Pinarello as obvious examples, but less obviously so they allowed Fiorelli to go on racing until Visma called him at 30 (!), or think Zana, Mulubrhan, Scalco etc. Next in list maybe Rojas?
Then of course they’re the place for those who once seemed to have potential for more but can’t or won’t jump WT, the Covili, Zanoncello, Tolio, Magli… a small Movistar in a sense, with that “family” approach for ill or good.
The point is that they need all the legs of the table to stay upright, first and foremost the big unripe talents, not only the “long waiters”, the “no ho(p)pers” and the “returners”.
But Italian young male cycling talent is diminishing, as less youngsters practice sports, and among them less even (probably the least ever) practice cycling, due to increasing risks and declining popular passion. Moreover, Devo Teams are harvesting aggresively at younger ages.
Add to that the fact that even “returners” aren’t easily available, because once they tasted WT wages or race programmes they won’t go back with much enthusiasm to the insecurities of a “green team”. The general shrink in quantity and level of male athletes with *natural basic* talent or potential throughout most traditional countries makes it easier for some athletes once entered WT to move around it, smallest and less ambitious team are well available before you even think you go back down to Bardiani.
Finally, the “industrial district” model so effective in Italy to provide high quality manufacturing, notably so in Emilia Romagna or Marche or Veneto among others, implies having a multitude of little companies each of which can’t be able to invest the amounts required by current cycling. You can of course go the Savio way, but it’s hard work to collect so many of those patches and keep them all together & satisfied.
So… here we are.
That was super informative – thank you Gabrielle
I think there are bargains to be had in English-speaking countries, not sure if the small Italian teams just aren’t interested. Seb Berwick is already having a great season, Byron Munton was out there, Aaron Gate spent years in obscurity before joining the WT. It’s not very sexy, but point farming is more important than ever, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be worth it to look in less traditional places.
Easy with hindsight, less so before you sign them. Each team has its approach, its contacts and so on. If you’re not familiar with a given environment, it’s easier to spend your little precious money on the wrong athletes. And if they succeed, they might easily decide to go themselves to a more culturally familiar context.
Examples? Mark Christian or John Archibald didn’t work for Eolo. (current Polti). Double did… and was soon out to Jayco after just one season!
Anyway, Solution Tech is another Italian team open to sign foreign cyclists for a broad range of reasons (ahem).
Bardiani is simply a bit different, their way worked for them for half a century or nearly so – hence more sustainable and resilient than most may I say, now it’s once again adapt, resist or die.
Re: hindisght and Berwick, I don’t know if he had health issues or whatever the last two seasons, but truth is that Caja Rural has spent two years of wages on him to get half of the points, in total, which, say, Filippo Magli normally scores in any single season. Now in Berwick’s last contract year he suddenly woke up, or got to his prime at 26, or who knows, and the bet’s become a winning one. For this year at least.
Munton isn’t any better than Marcellusi or Zanoncello in terms of points and he’s around the same age, so not sure wha’s the improvement.
Aaron Gate was picked by Burgos, and as soon as he proved effective was taken by Astana, as happened to Eolo with Double.
I was impressed with Rondel yesterday, never heard of him before but looks like he placed highly in quite a few shorter stage races last year. Hopefully he can keep it going for the full three weeks
An interesting rider, Tudor have signed him on a long contract. He started out as a speed skater like his father but got into cycling. From Le Mans, he moved to the Pyrenees to train better – but not Andorra – where he keeps a Thibaut Pinot-style collection of animals.
His team expands more on this at https://www.tudorprocycling.com/post/tud-portrait-mathys-rondel
Thanks, really enjoyed those animal selfies
Better if I don’t self-quote again or some Anon’s self-esteem might be hurt again ^___^
He’s very patient in his carrier, buid his path goal after goal and this from the beginning (his first interviews in Directvélo are from 2022). He’s not flamboyant and search more regularity than coups d’éclat (hence the Zubeldia comparison). I wonder when he will meet his limits ; it’s a pretty rare kind of rider.
I know there will be responses about “honouring the Jersey” etc but why did Bahrain (and Red Bull to an extent) ride yesterday? Visma hung around the back (the Simon Yates strategy?) eventually putting one rider up front. Surely it was in every other team’s interest to make Visma pull, they clearly wanted the stage victory and it was not just about yesterday’s stage but accumulated fatigue. There was some talk in commentary that Bahrain were over excited with having the Jersey but surely the job of the ex pro DSs is to keep the riders calm and ride sensibly?
I did wonder if the wind meant it was difficult for JV to ride away as he might have liked, we have seen before where the wind has meant small gaps on mountain top finishes (Mt Etna for example). That said he is in prime position without seemingly having to go too deep, he was on the phone within moments of finishing). The final yesterday seemed ideal for Felix Gall, a long regular climb (boring for some folk), today is the sort of route where he could easily end up losing 30 seconds maybe more
Wondering the same for Bahrain, the riders up the road were all over 20 minutes down and it meant they used up riders early when they’d have been more useful at the start of the final climb. And similar for Red Bull when they appeared on the front on the climb early trying to set a pace which just used up riders who could have sheltered Pellizzari and Hindley from the wind.
Was RBH trying to do some psychological warfare, sending a message to JV saying: we’re not afraid of you, our man is in top form? I don’t really see the point in bluffing in a situation like this as the cards were coming on the table only minutes later, but this sort of thing happens more often.
Think they’re all racing for placings, visibility when they can get some and so on – fighting on every scrap I guess.
Gall said pretty explicitly that he didn’t think about maglia rosa at all (which makes sense, and his team at least worked well for him).
Racing to beat JV is probably not going to be successful, but racing to put the Bernals of the world out the back isn’t a bad idea. If you look at the placings of the gc favorites, their TT abilities, etc., RBH are in good shape. If anything, they could have done better if Pellizzari chilled a bit and didn’t blow up trying to follow JV.
You’re right but I was happy to see Pellizzari playing it wrong (in contrast with what I write below) because he’s young and it’s the sort of mistakes you learn much from.
Froome (albeit not a youngster) probably learnt more being repeatedly beat by Contador in the 2014 Vuelta they both entered in equal conditions than he had by winning the 2013 TDF.
Plus, riding by the powermetre sometimes might prevent the unexpected from happening. Of course you’d better pick the right moment to risk. I read that ES France (inrng might confirm or not) produced a clip which showed that when Vingo went everybody watched instantly their screens to check data… barring Pellizzari. Lost for lost, at 22 I prefer a rider who loses like that.
A lot of riders probably have today marked for a breakaway attempt as it’s between two clear GC days, and it’s not a sprint day. So we may see a long fight for the breakaway. Good stage to watch on a Saturday.
Tomorrow could also be interesting for a break if Red Bull and Bahrain stop working for Visma. But it needs to be a decent break with the bunch renouncing to chase, because the stage is too short to otherwise build a lead, and the last 30 kms aren’t easy to defend if the chase is aggressive. Yet, the final climb’s only got 2 really hard kms and very very close to the finish, so getting there with little more than one minute might be enough if there’s some gambling in the peloton. It might be interesting for the break precisely as it doesn’t look a break stage at all, at first sight. Obviously, if more than one team decides to chase, it’s unbirthday present again for Vingo. If I were the rest, I’d throw people in the break, Visma does, too, and there you go.
I watched the old Tirreno finishes at Fermo on YouTube yesterday and it’s a really tricky finish.
Sagan’s win was especially impressive as he beat Pinot, Thomas and Roglic to the line after being dropped in the early steepest slopes.
Looking at the profile initially I’d thought Vingegaard could challenge but I think he’ll back off as it’s quite sketchy about 500m from the line.
Looks ready made for Narvaez but what about Silva too? Is he punchy enough to take a second stage win here? Could be a great finale.
Sagan was brutal, it’s even more incredible when one checks who the other names in top 10 were, mostly GT top contenders. Speaking of Sagan, I really liked best the 2013 stage which featured today’s finale as an intermediate sprint far from the line. Nibali and him went havoc under the rain and the Shark brought GC home over Froome. Also in that case, the winners were tracked by a list of TDF podiumers or GT winners, Purito, Samu, Horner, Contador and… ahem… “SuperSanta” Santambrogio ROTFL.
Anyway, I suspect that today will be more akin to 2022, short and easy really but with big options for a break. Even in 2022 the classification apart from the breakaway riders was a longlist of excellent climbers within 30″ from Porte. Great quality, little differences.
Silva one to watch but has been erratic. Anything more is a bonus in the race so there’s no pressure on him but it’s probably too hilly with the repeat efforts to come.
I thought Vingegaard had the Tour in the back of his mind and had already eased up a bit, when he realized, that only Gall remained behind Himmel. I guess he knows that Gall poses no threat in the TT.
I think so, too. Vingegaard indeed opened gas to drop Pellizzari for good, then eased up once he saw the Italian had cracked big time. Besides, it’s not uncommon for Vingegaard to relent a bit once he’s made a serious difference or a hard push in the first couple of kms, perhaps a mental thing or simply a more strategic approach. This year it was apparent both in Pa-Ni and Catalunya. Obviously, all very relative to his extremely high level, so that you can see only the best of the rest taking advantage of that to come a little closer (or, better said, a little less far behind…!). Maybe also a consequence of him training to counter Pogi’s explosiveness as commented by his team last year.
Any chances for Jonas today?
Was hesitating over giving him a chainring as if the breakaway doesn’t stick he’s got a chance with the hilly finish. He’s not a classics rider by results and like Chris Froome has never won a one-day race but he ought to be capable on a stage like today as he’s punchy and a good bike handler.
Pellizzari can perform here too; and it’s a place to put Gall under pressure. Even if the break sticks there’s a chance of a second race among the GC contenders even if they’ll also be thinking of tomorrow’s summit finish.
Vingegaard won the 1.Pro Drome Classic in 2022 but that is almost the exception that prove the rule. Made me wonder which recent GT winners haven’t won a one-day race, and a quick search indicates Geoghegan Hart and Hindley.
Looks like it could be a while before we have another, with the next generation including Seixas, Del Toro and Ayuso all having won good one-day races already. I for one won’t miss the era of over-specialisation in stage racing at the expense of all else in the sport.
You’re right of course, the exception that proves the rule. There’s talk of the Olympics for Vingegaard, and the worlds in Domancy suit too. Pogačar is an obvious block but if the Slovenian is not there he could probably win more.
A small thing but when the riders sprinted for the finish yesterday he was agile while you could see others, especially Arensman, like diesels and struggling with the change in pace.
Could have been a great stage with a different cast of riders contesting the final, but this way it is pretty forgettable.
It was just terrible to watch and not because they were UAE, just the rest of the big break playing it out awfully and the big GC guys opting for a rest day. The latter can be excused but the former is just low quality sport. I’ll never insist enough on the low average technical level of the current peloton in strategic terms – which partly explains individual dominant performance by several superior riders (Pogi, MvdP, Vingo, Remco, Pedersen even).