Bonjour, the race starts in Piemonte but heads to Italy’s Aosta valley where French is a second language and then crosses into francophone Switzerland for two more climbs.
Giro d’Italia Stage 12 Preview
The Giro reaches the Alps but this is a day for the breakaway more than the first big showdown among the overall candidates.
Giro d’Italia Stage 11 Preview
What’s Italian for déjà vu? Another contest between the breakaway and the sprinters’ teams on a 200km+ stage with over 2000m+ of vertical gain… and it’ll rain again too. But if the stages have similarities, the racing keeps changing. All change tomorrow though with the start of the Alpine racing.
Giro d’Italia Stage 10 Preview
The Giro resumes with a stage of two halves, the first mountainous and on back roads, before the latter part on the plains as the race heads for a seaside finish in Viareggio.
Giro Rest Day Notes
Having started on some notes following yesterday’s time trial, all thoughts were Evenepoel having a slender 45 second lead that he’d couldn’t just defend. Instead he’d have to try and attack once he’d got beyond the rest day and two likely sprint stages that might offer him more recovery after his crashes. But that’s all been binned with the news he’s out of the Giro following a Covid test.
In the space of a week we’ve gone from the pre-race scenario of an exclusive duel between Evenepoel and Roglič, to Evenepoel not building the lead he needed, and now to Ineos leading the race but only just.
Giro d’Italia Stage 9 Preview
A time trial stage and in the absence of Filippo Ganna it feels like the big question is Remco Evenepoel’s winning margin; the other is the order of the other GC contenders and the gaps between them.
Evenepoel is the obvious pick but this stage will show us what health he’s in after his crashes this week. It’s the high point for him on paper as after today he’ll be racing on terrain where his rivals will feel they have the advantage, especially after yesterday’s finish in Fossombrone.
Giro d’Italia Stage 8 Preview
An intriguing stage, a day borrowed from Tirreno-Adriatico. This stage doesn’t look tough as the y-axis of vertical gain doesn’t look fierce but it’s harder than it seems in the finish. After yesterday’s huddled finish we’ll see if the big names attack but they’ll have tomorrow’s time time on their minds.
Giro d’Italia Stage 7 Preview
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.
Giro d’Italia Stage 6 Preview
Out and back from Napoli, today’s stage should be a lot like yesterday’s one, but drier and hopefully with fewer crashes.
