The Giro d’Italia starts in ten days’ time and just as there’s a season-long calendar of all the major men’s and women’s races to download, here’s the stage by stage Giro ical for your phone or diary ahead of the grande partenza in Sardinia.
The calendar keeps proving surprisingly popular for each grand tour. It lists each stage along with the distance plus a stellar rating to indicate the strategic importance or likely entertainment.
Michele Scarponi, a jester and the accidental winner of the 2011 Giro d’Italia, died on Saturday 22 April aged 37 following a collision with a truck on the outskirts of his home town of Filottrano.
The final spring classic and the oldest, the race began in 1892 and these days marks the transition from one day classics to the hilly stage races thanks to a course that’s as hard as a day in the Alps with plenty of vertical gain from the ten marked climbs and many more that are unlabelled. Alejandro Valverde is the obvious pick for Sunday this time he’s got more challengers in a race that is harder to control.
Enjoy the Flèche Wallonne yesterday? A series of breakaways tried their luck until a small breakaway reached the foot of the Mur where the winner attacked to take an impressive solo win. If this scenario sounds unfamiliar then it’s the story of the Women’s Flèche Wallonne and by all accounts it sounded more exciting than the men’s version, even if both races were essentially repeats with Anna van der Breggen and Alejandro Valverde each winning again and again.
This week is packed with high quality women’s racing thanks to the revived Amstel Gold Race, the established Flèche Wallonne feminine and the newly-created Liège-Bastogne-Liège for women. It’s great to see this growth but the deliberate schedule clash forces the women’s race to compete with the men’s race for media attention and the inevitable outcome is the women’s race barely registers.
Formulaic and predictable? Yes but so are many blockbluster films and even if you can guess the ending it can still be exciting to watch. The Flèche Wallonne has become a known quantity defined by its final climb, the infernally steep Mur de Huy.
Once again Alejandro Valverde is the prime pick and the finish is forecast for 4.35pm CET. But in case you want a fuller preview, here it is…
The Tro Bro Leon race took place yesterday with the win going to Corporal Damien Gaudin (Armée de Terre) and Laurent Pichon (Fortuneo-Vital Concept) winning a pig as the best local rider. This is a unique race and a remote one that may not attract the big names and World Tour teams but its quiet success proves it needn’t worry either.
The classics come to the Netherlands and huge crowds enjoy a day in the sun and beer from the race sponsor. The hilly course has been for the climbers but several sprinters want to muscle in and a new finish is designed to stir up the action. Sunday’s race offers the rare chance of seeing the likes of Greg Van Avermaet and Alejandro Valverde, the season’s most succesful riders, go up against each other.
Here’s a race preview with the usual look at the course, contenders, TV times and more.
With the cobbled classics done, time for the Ardennes? Yes and plenty more. With just over three weeks to the Giro it’s a good time to take a quick look at the contenders and pretenders for the race and see where they are, especially given the news that Fabio Aru is out with a knee injury.
Greg Van Avermaet wins the sprint in the Roubaix velodrome after a frantic race ridden at record speed that was defined by misfortune and mishaps. The result was uncertain right until the final metres as Zdeněk Štybar launched a powerful sprint and looked to have the jump on his rivals only for Van Avermaet to surge in the final straight and win.
