The big stage of the Giro. 212km and 5,400m of vertical gain, hard on the best of days but the weather today looks grim, it’ll be very cold and wet. Today’s preview is provisional on the planned course going ahead…
11:00am Update: the course has been revised
Many in the peloton will have their mind on tomorrow’s big mountain stage, today’s stage visits Slovenia and could see another breakaway rewarded.
Who owns the Giro d’Italia? If you’re about to say RCS, don’t because you’d be wrong. RCS are the organisers of the race but they don’t own it. Could it be Urbano Cairo, the man who controls RCS today? No, it’s not him either…
Not every day can be a day in the Apennines or a dash across the strade bianche. A sprint in Verona awaits.
A hard day ending in carnage. No need to hype up the stage, that’s just the name of the final mountain pass today but it is a steep climb and followed by a toboggan run descent into the finish.
The Super Tuscan stage, 162km with climbs and dirt roads on the way to the finish in Montalcino. This is the Strade Bianche stage but it’s a different race to the spring classic, a hard stage with relatively long climbs to sap energy.
We’re halfway there but the hard days are still to come. It’s been an enjoyable Giro so far, we’ve had a variety of stages and the breakaways have been rewarded. Egan Bernal might be on the verge of riding away with the Giro but that’s conditional, for all the drama of the ski slope finish at Campo di Felice was dramatic the 8km Turin time trial saw bigger time gaps.
Another chance for the sprinters, more so since Caleb Ewan has gone home. It’s all on familiar roads to Foligno, the novelty today could be the wind.
A good day for the breakaway and also a hard stage for the GC contenders although today’s stage isn’t severe, the really selective part is the gravel slope right at the end.
