It was a calm day in the peloton to start off the road stages for the Giro. There wasn't much story to the day besides the dangerous final sprint, it was as expected very fast and the riders who started in front kept that position, Tim Merlier launched at the right time and had the power to confortably snatch his first Grand Tour win ahead of Giacomo Nizzolo and Elia Viviani.
Positive: Merlier taking a brilliant first win, specially as a non-WT riders, nothing really more to mention as there were no surprises in the sprint.
Negative: UAE did a great job leading out Gaviria but Molano himself completely blocked the Colombian who miraculously avoided a crash. Not seeing Ewan in a technical sprint is no surprise, but nevertheless the Australian wasted one of the few opportunities he'll have.
The Route
Today delivered for the pure sprinters and tomorrow will offer a more diverse opportunity for those who also have climbing on their resume of talents. The day overall isn't a hard one but the last half is decently tough for the faster riders. We'll get a combination of climbs summiting with 68, 46 and 36.5Km to go, I don't expect to see a high pace in these but they will set some fatigue as each will take around a dozen minutes to go up, and the descents are relatively technical so the GC teams will be looking to position their leaders so as to avoid any mishaps.
The place where we may see some attacks is in Guarene, where there will be a bonus sprint, it's a climb with wide roads, generally sustainable but with some explosive final hundred meters where the ramps go up to 15% (local signalling points out 18!). There won't be a long descent to recover, any sprinters dropped will have serious problems latching back on.
As for the finale it's a whole different story to today's. Technical, fast, dangerous. The run-up to Canale is pretty simple and safe to be quite honest but there will be a race to 800 meters to the finish. You have images below with my recon, the corners at 800 and 500 meters to go look very dangerous as there will be big speeds and it's a blind exit. After getting through the final chicane there are around 450 meters to the finish and towards the finish line there's a small tilt up in the road.
The Weather
There will be a slight breeze from the north but what can play out tomorrow is the rain that is forecasted for the afternoon. Not heavy, but we are expecting some water on the road, that will make the descents a bit sketchy and will weigh on some riders' legs.
The Favourites
Some teams will be controlling the day in hopes of keeping everything together and assisting their men for a reduced bunch sprint, the majority of the stage should be easy to control until the climbs begin, there the story will be different. Some of the men who were in front today should struggle like the Jumbo-Visma boys, Viviani, Gaviria and Merlier himself, and then others like Caleb Ewan sometimes fly up hills (remember the Poggio?) and others can't even stay in the peloton. It's hard to know which fast men can hang on, Peter Sagan has seemed back in form and I would believe Bora will be taking most of the responsability towards the end, having assitance from perhaps Qhubeka who have Nizzolo showing very good signs of climbing this season, but more reliability in Israel who have Patrick Bevin (and also perhaps Davide Cimolai) who offer guarrantees of a strong result in a sprint, AG2R who have Andrea Vendrame and then possibly see some riders surprise like Nick Schultz who should be there for BikeExchange, albeit with no responsability, and Simone Consonni who should be Cofidis' option.
The more I look the more I see the possible attackers succeeding though. The rain, the lack of top sprinters who give total confidence of being there in the end, and the amount of opportunists who have the legs to attack a finale like this and a big engine. This list includes plenty riders, I would say it's easier to list them.
Those who can sprint:
Gianni Moscon
Clément Champoussin
Gianni Vermeersch
Gorka Izagirre & Luis Leon Sanchez & Fabio Felline
Matej Mohoric
Ruben Guerreiro
Quinten Hermans
Matteo Jorgenson
Nicholas Roche
Alessandro Covi & Diego Ulissi
Those who need to go solo:
Mikkel Honoré & Remi Cavagna & Fausto Masnada
Alberto Bettiol
Rudy Molard
Gianluca Brambilla & Bauke Mollema
Davide Formolo & Valerio Conti
My point is obvious, tomorrow is wide wide open. The climbs aren't hard enough to prevent the rouleurs from being there, but they are hard enough to be attacked by climbers. It's a dangerous scenario, we'll likely see a wide mix of riders attacking, let's see if the race can be controlled on such roads.
Prediction Time
⭐ Ewan, Vendrame, G.Izagirre, LL.Sanchez, Guerreiro, Jorgenson, Roche, Cavagna, Molard, Bettiol, Formolo
My call is for a late attack to succeed. There are plenty options but I'll go with a team full of stage hunters which is UAE who are certain to be on the attack, Davide Formolo has the power to attack on the climb but also the power to move clear on the flat tricky roads to the finish.
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