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CAMPI BISENZIO > SESTOLA Tuesday 17 May 2016 (219km)
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We've been spoilt already in this Giro and many will have been twiddling their thumbs cold turkey during the rest day Monday, but we're back in action with an absolute ripper of a stage. At first this might look quite innocuous but there's 4 categorised climbs and a whole host of other lumps. There's nearly 3,500m of vertical climbing here including 1,100 in the last 35km and although the final slope isn't sleep the Cat 1 climb before it and the descent should see some real action. There's a fairly innocuous start to the day with 25km of flat road out of the start town of Campi Bisenzio near Florence but they're quickly onto the Passo Della Collina. Although not too steep, this Cat 3 climb willWe've been spoilt already in this Giro and many will have been twiddling their thumbs cold turkey during the rest day Monday, but we're back in action with an absolute ripper of a stage. At first this might look quite innocuous today but there's 4 categorised climbs and a whole host of other lumps. There's nearly 3,500m of vertical climbing here including 1,100 in the last 35km. There's a fairly innocuous start to the day with 25km of flat road out of the start town of Campi Bisenzio near Florence but they're quickly onto the Passo Della Collina. Although not too steep, this Cat 3 climb will surely enable the break to get established. The break will be very interesting. We've only really had 1 proper GC stage in this race and this really has the potential to be another. However, there's plenty of riders who have lost enough time to no longer be considered a GC threat and we could see a sizeable break. Again, we should see the opening kilometres taken really quickly. After a long descent from Collina they are immediately onto the second climb - Pietrocolora. This is 6.2km at 6% so is not an easy climb. If the break is up the road by this stage it should be taken fairly easily though. A plateau and a descent takes the riders to the feed zone and past the 100km point of this stage. The next 85km are a series of short climbs and descents. It will be really interesting to see which teams control the race during this section. With 33km to go they hit the Cat 1 penultimate climb.
Pian Del Falco is almost two climbs with a plateau in the middle but it will really hurt. The first section is just under 5km at 7% before a plateau for about 7km. There could be quite a big group together here but it should blow apart on the upper slopes.The last 4km of the climb average over 9%, it has several sections with double digit gradients and the steepest slopes are at 13%. This should cause some serious damage. The descent will be almost as key. Anyone that is brave enough to attack here could put serious time into their rivals. The descent is seriously fast, as a whole it is 8km at 8.4%, with several sharp turns. If this is wet it could be treacherous. It should be well spread out as they get to the bottom of the descent and tackle the final climb.
The final climb is fairly straightforward. It is a Cat 3 climb, 7km long and an average of 5%. It probably won't suit the mountain goats as well as the more powerful men, but after the steep climb and descent preceding it you wouldn't expect there to be a big group coming to the end together. We were in Sestola two years ago when Stage 9 was won by Peter Weening as the climbed Pian Del Falco from the other side.
It will be absolutely fascinating to see how this stage pans out. Etixx are having a great Giro. After an underwhelming Classics campaign if you told Patrick Lefevre that after the second rest day in the Giro he'd have 3 stage wins, Kittel would have worn both pink and red and after the 40km TT they'd not just have the pink and white jerseys but also have a 1-2 in both categories he probably would have fainted! They're even winning the team classification! With Brambilla having only a 1 second lead over Jungels and 10 riders within 2 minutes there's plenty of riders who will see an opportunity for glory here. Indeed, it will be very interesting to see how a number of teams play this. Astana, Sky and Movistar looked the strongest teams coming into this and today will be a good opportunity to see who has the most strength in the mountains. Astana have looked far from their normal powerful, organised best and it will be interesting to see how much support Nibali receives. Landa appears to be approaching peak form and Sky too will look to get more men around their leader. Movistar have probably been the strongest of all teams and with Amador backing up the designated leader Valverde and currently in a podium spot on the GC they look like the only team with two possible genuine GC contenders. With Lotto Jumbo, Tinkoff, Katusha, Ag2r and Orica also all having realistic GC hopes at this stage this could be fast. This is where things start to get serious. Vincenzo Nibali to start to assert here and take the win.
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We've been spoilt already in this Giro and many will have been twiddling their thumbs cold turkey during the rest day Monday, but we're back in action with an absolute ripper of a stage. At first this might look quite innocuous but there's 4 categorised climbs and a whole host of other lumps. There's nearly 3,500m of vertical climbing here including 1,100 in the last 35km and although the final slope isn't sleep the Cat 1 climb before it and the descent should see some real action. There's a fairly innocuous start to the day with 25km of flat road out of the start town of Campi Bisenzio near Florence but they're quickly onto the Passo Della Collina. Although not too steep, this Cat 3 climb willWe've been spoilt already in this Giro and many will have been twiddling their thumbs cold turkey during the rest day Monday, but we're back in action with an absolute ripper of a stage. At first this might look quite innocuous today but there's 4 categorised climbs and a whole host of other lumps. There's nearly 3,500m of vertical climbing here including 1,100 in the last 35km. There's a fairly innocuous start to the day with 25km of flat road out of the start town of Campi Bisenzio near Florence but they're quickly onto the Passo Della Collina. Although not too steep, this Cat 3 climb will surely enable the break to get established. The break will be very interesting. We've only really had 1 proper GC stage in this race and this really has the potential to be another. However, there's plenty of riders who have lost enough time to no longer be considered a GC threat and we could see a sizeable break. Again, we should see the opening kilometres taken really quickly. After a long descent from Collina they are immediately onto the second climb - Pietrocolora. This is 6.2km at 6% so is not an easy climb. If the break is up the road by this stage it should be taken fairly easily though. A plateau and a descent takes the riders to the feed zone and past the 100km point of this stage. The next 85km are a series of short climbs and descents. It will be really interesting to see which teams control the race during this section. With 33km to go they hit the Cat 1 penultimate climb.
Pian Del Falco is almost two climbs with a plateau in the middle but it will really hurt. The first section is just under 5km at 7% before a plateau for about 7km. There could be quite a big group together here but it should blow apart on the upper slopes.The last 4km of the climb average over 9%, it has several sections with double digit gradients and the steepest slopes are at 13%. This should cause some serious damage. The descent will be almost as key. Anyone that is brave enough to attack here could put serious time into their rivals. The descent is seriously fast, as a whole it is 8km at 8.4%, with several sharp turns. If this is wet it could be treacherous. It should be well spread out as they get to the bottom of the descent and tackle the final climb.
The final climb is fairly straightforward. It is a Cat 3 climb, 7km long and an average of 5%. It probably won't suit the mountain goats as well as the more powerful men, but after the steep climb and descent preceding it you wouldn't expect there to be a big group coming to the end together. We were in Sestola two years ago when Stage 9 was won by Peter Weening as the climbed Pian Del Falco from the other side.
It will be absolutely fascinating to see how this stage pans out. Etixx are having a great Giro. After an underwhelming Classics campaign if you told Patrick Lefevre that after the second rest day in the Giro he'd have 3 stage wins, Kittel would have worn both pink and red and after the 40km TT they'd not just have the pink and white jerseys but also have a 1-2 in both categories he probably would have fainted! They're even winning the team classification! With Brambilla having only a 1 second lead over Jungels and 10 riders within 2 minutes there's plenty of riders who will see an opportunity for glory here. Indeed, it will be very interesting to see how a number of teams play this. Astana, Sky and Movistar looked the strongest teams coming into this and today will be a good opportunity to see who has the most strength in the mountains. Astana have looked far from their normal powerful, organised best and it will be interesting to see how much support Nibali receives. Landa appears to be approaching peak form and Sky too will look to get more men around their leader. Movistar have probably been the strongest of all teams and with Amador backing up the designated leader Valverde and currently in a podium spot on the GC they look like the only team with two possible genuine GC contenders. With Lotto Jumbo, Tinkoff, Katusha, Ag2r and Orica also all having realistic GC hopes at this stage this could be fast. This is where things start to get serious. Vincenzo Nibali to start to assert here and take the win.
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Backed Nibali and Amador, just think the price is too big on Amador. Also spun the wheel on one or two who may get in a break.
Nibali .5ew 25/1 Amador .25ew 100/1 (4 places) Timmer .01 599/1 Grosu .01 999/1 |
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*** Vincenzo Nibali Has been going along with a minimum of fuss, although in retrospect he got his timing wrong when attacking the GC peloton on approaching the flat plateau area of the long climb to Roccaraso on stage 6, conceding time to all GC contedners bar Landa whilst testing his condition and coming-up short. He finished that stage visibly fatigued, however his ride on the white roads of stage 8, particularly on the final climb was measured and strong. Is leading the Group 2 Virtual GC, and this stage suits on account of the potential it holds for an attack approaching the crest of the Pian Del Falco in order to gap his opponents on the long 8.5kms descent. Opened at 21/1 and has been pushed-out to 25/1. Very good value, I would have had him at an 8/1 equal favourite with Valverde. Conditions suit. Treat warily. Worthy of very close consideration.
* Andrey Amador Surprisingly, he is sitting in 3rd-place on the GC after moving-up ten positions during an impressive and perhaps a little lucky TT ride on stage 9. Finished in a distant 4th-place on GC at the Giro last year and is here as a domestique for Valverde. Has not won a race since climbing into Cervinia on stage 14 of the 2012 Giro edition, which was a difficult parcours, however he is in obvious fine form and will have the freedom to attack here should MOV DS spot an opportunity. Solid throughout at 100/1. May find conditions to his liking. Handy type. Do not discount lightly. Good luck to all, SP |
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Morning. After a few heavy weekends I'm now able to concentrate on the cycling. This stage looks ripe for a breakaway as I don't see Etixx particularly wanting a hard race. Will Movistar or Astana pick up the slack?
Will be in play for me once I've seen the break. Landa seems to have either fallen or he's sick. He's been dropped by a couple of minutes already. |
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Landa's body is rejecting the serum
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Like the look of Niemiec out of the current break. Not taking as much time as I'd like though.
Landa abandons. All very odd that. |
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Well Pirazzi looks to have killed the break. *humph*
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G'day CJ, that may be the case, but Visconti is still a good bet at 4/1, I believe. MOV are in pole position and he will be expected to go for the stage, since it would give them two cards to play for Valverde.
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Handy win by Ciccone on home soil. Nice touch from pink jersey wearer Brambilla to help get his teammate the pink jersey.
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Didn't back Valverde myself but surely he could of won that stage if movistar had of decided to chase. Etixx did most of the work anyway and the break was only ever 4 minutes up the road. Movistar surely could of chimed in late and brought the break back and set up Valverde for the stage win and bonus seconds.
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A few things in review...
Firstly, a great win by the 21yo Ciccone, neo-pro's don't usually ride GT races let alone win stages in them, so that puts his win into context. I think whilst it might have looked like Ciccone was riding for Pirazzi when in the main breakaway, that all changed when Cunego attacked on approaching the cat.1 climb and with Pirazzi unable to respond, it was left to Ciccone to show his strength as he covered the move with ease. Then perhaps Ciccone did get lucky as Pirazzi and Cunego touched on the descent because Pirazzi locked-up and Cunego looked shallow into the turn, which gave Ciccone a small gap, however Ciccone nevertheless opened-up that gap all by himself and built on it on the final climb solo, when he could've easily cracked, so clearly in retrospect he was the strongest of that group of three. But let's not forget that the riders in the breakaway were softened-up by Boem's tenderising impact as he drove the pace during a critical period. So, it was really a great BAR team performance. Secondly, AST busted-up the GC peloton group on the cat.1 climb, I mean they still had six riders forging the pace which was exceptional, but what was most impressive is that Scarponi and Fuglsang were there right up to the end on the final climb. Thirdly, no attack from Nibali but an attack from Amador which was concerning as it looked like MOV had decided to throw his chances for a GC podium out-the-window, essentially for nothing. Once news must have filtered through, concerning Landa's abandonement, Nibali would have gone defensive in so far as if he wasn't on good sensations than an attack approaching the cat.1 summit would be unnecessary, so in a way that was understandible. But with Amador it looked like he spent a lot of energy, and I'm not sure he will be capable of recovering from that beyond providing small digs for Valverde, later. That Visconti was told to wait for Amador was clear panic by MOV that there move with Amador was failing and the long-term impacts might be felt down-the-track, and so Visconti was required to nurture Amador along. I'm not sure that MOV move is entirely clear in review, but Valverde was strong to the line on gradient which was clearly in his favour, and that's all MOV care about at this point. Nibali came over the line fatigued much like when he crossed the line on stage 6, but I can't see anything but him just going about his business in the way which works best for him, and building condition for the final week. I therefore think Valverde might be under pressure in the big mountains, but he hasn't really put a foot wrong so far. Cheers, SP |
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Good luck to anyone who picked the winner yesterday.
Either we've just witnessed a great talent or a well trodden path. |