A summit finish, and a high altitude one too but only the final five kilometres of the climb are selective. With luck we’ll get two races for the price of one, a breakaway to contest the stage win and the GC contenders in action soon after but Jumbo-Visma and others might want to mow down the breakaway for the time bonuses so they can start to take back time on Evenepoel.
Out and back from Napoli, today’s stage should be a lot like yesterday’s one, but drier and hopefully with fewer crashes.
A for ammiraglia. You say team car, in Italian the word is ammiraglia, a naval word that means “flag ship”, which sounds both superior and poetic.
B for Bartali… and Coppi. The pair of riders encapsulate plenty, a golden age and a sporting rivalry that went well beyond antics on the road, they were also opposing characters from different regions with different styles: Bartali the pious Tuscan, Coppi as urbane and modern. Some of the differences were exaggerated and caricatured but that’s the very essence of a rivalry.
C for Campagnolo. The component maker began when Tulio Campagnolo found undoing wing nuts with his frozen hands and invented the quick release lever and in time his firm became a leading component manufacturer. Today though only one World Tour team in Ag2r Citroën rides Campagnolo.
It’s only the fourth stage and Tuesday but here’s a mountain stage with a tough final climb to make today one for the GC riders.
An intriguing stage. The action should be on the flanks of Monte Vulture, an extinct volcano. But who will control the stage? The sprinters’ teams cannot and the GC teams won’t rush either.
A flat stage for the sprinters. They have few opportunities in this race so this is an important stage for them and their teams.
Welcome to the start of three weeks of daily previews. Time trials are a theme of this year’s race as there are three of them and today is a crucial stage, this is not a warm-up antipasto prologue, it’s a hearty main course.
A look at the contenders and pretenders for the 2023 Giro d’Italia. This year’s edition seems to open with two questions. Who will finish first between Remco Evenepoel and Primož Roglič, and who will finish third?
This the picture today and so often the Giro is an optical illusion that reveals a different form later. We’ll revisit and revise the contenders and their outlook on each of the rest days.
Here’s the Giro d’Italia guide. There’s all the stage profiles on one page, with a preview of their routes well as explainers on the rules for the mountains and points competitions; TV guide, time-cuts and more.
A separate look at the contenders and pretenders for the overall win will be along soon.
As loyal readers will know, a reminder you can read this post here but if you need the reference material anytime in the coming weeks there’s a permanent page with all the same info at inrng.com/giro, which you can reach via the menu at the top of the screen for desktop browsers / dropdown menu on a mobile device.
