Krushing the Giro: Stage 14

Tomorrow's stage will finish at the Marco Pantani memorial that marks the spot where he attacked in the '98 Tour

I delayed today's post in hopes that we'd get some sort of official word on tomorrow's stage. Well, RCS has now announced that tomorrow's stage will in fact take place and that it will climb the Col du Mont Cenis, but that it will not go all the way to the summit of the Col du Galibier. Instead the stage will finish at the Marco Pantani memorial about 4 kilometers from the original finish line. There were rumors that the stage might be scrapped altogether, so this is better than nothing.


It's really too bad that we had such limited live pictures of today's stage. Sounds like the last 5k were pretty exciting. Henao attacked at some point as did Pellizotti, and Rosa, but all attacks were neutralized by Nibali. The Italian, along with Santambrogio and Betancur, dropped Evans and Uran. Santambrogio took the stage and the bonus seconds, while Nibali took second. He continues to show great form and at this point it's hard to bet against him. The battle for the other two podium positions, however is still very much alive. Santambrogio had a great day, and is now a real contender. Uran, Evans, Santambrogio: Three riders, two places on either side of Nibali.

Absolute shit weather didn't stop Betancur from finishing an impressive third

Yesterday I had predicted that Carlos Betancur would win the stage, and I wasn't far off. He continues to have an amazing Giro. The Colombian came in third and moved to 9th in the GC. He is now only three seconds behind Majka in the race for the Maglia Bianca. The potentially bad news for him, and Pozzovivo, is that AG2R may be pulling out of the Dauphine because of all this doping nonsense. The Dauphine was race that Betancur was targeting.

Oh, something else... Vini Fantini has all their guys wearing visors. People: NOT BASEBALL, NOT TENNIS, NOT GOLF! IT'S CYCLING!

Phew... Anyway, I'm relieved that we will have a stage tomorrow, now I just hope we'll get some sort of live pictures of it.

Randomness:

- Mario Cipollini mention counter: 5
- Helmet talk counter: 13
- Euskaltel guys on the deck counter: 3
- Stage winner wearing cycling cap / baseball hat / no hat counter:  1 / 10 / 1 - Santambrogio had a visor! WTF?

Krushing the Giro: Stage 13

Cav assures RAI he won't pull a Bouhanni and will finish the Giro

I'm sorry I didn't post yesterday for stage 12. You see, I have a life outside of cycling. Not an exciting and glamorous life, mind you, but sometimes I got shit to do. Anyway, here's what I would have posted yesterday:

It rained. There was a breakaway. OPQS chased. Cavendish won. The end.

Wet Cav

Today? Well, it didn't rain. There was a breakaway. OPQS chased. Cavendish won. The end.

I know, I know. There was a bit more than that. It seemed that every team tried to attack at some point, and there was a bit of cross winds that could have caused a lot of problems, but at the end OPQS delivered and helped Cav get his 101st pro victory.


Still, I think we can agree that the big news today was Wiggins leaving the 2013 Giro. So many questions to be answered: Can Uran, who tends to fade toward the end of three week races, keep it up? Will Sky ride for Uran with the same obedience and dedication that they would have for Wiggins? What does this mean for Sky and Froome in the Tour? Will Wiggins want to ride the Vuelta now screwing Porter over? Some of the answers we'll know this weekend, some we won't. My prediction? Well, I have a horrible track record with these, so feel free to dismiss the next few sentences. I think Uran will have a strong showing over the weekend, but not enough to shake Evans or Nibali off his tail. Gesink may lose his spot to Scarponi and even to Niemiek. Lampre haven't really used much energy and I think tomorrow and Sunday will be big days for them. Betancur will win the stage Saturday.

One thing is for sure, the Giro continues to be exciting and, as always, making the Tour look as dull as a roller coaster with no loops.

Randomness:

- Mario Cipollini mention counter: 5
- Helmet talk counter: 12
- Euskaltel guys on the deck counter: 3
- Stage winner wearing cycling cap / baseball hat / no hat counter: 1 / 10 / 1

Krushing the Giro: Stage 11

No doubt that RCS Sport has chosen four great wild card teams

Right off the bat, let me say that I'm not going to address the doping stories. Who really cares?

Not to take away from Navardauskas and Oss' efforts, today's stage was a pretty predictable affair. The breakaway succeeded and other than Intxausti's dig, getting him into the top 10, the favorites were happy to sit back and let the legs rest for a day.

I'm gonna take this "slow day" to talk about the great job the wild card teams are doing in this Giro so far. Let's take the KOM classification as an example. Right now the top three riders are all from wild card teams.
- Bardiani Valvole are having a great race. Enrico Battaglin got the team to a great start by winning stage 4. He almost made it two in stage 7, where he came in second. Pirazzi has also looked very strong all week fighting for the Blue Jersey.
- Vini Fantini, meanwhile, came in a respectable 5th in the TTT. They have Mauro Santambrogio, in the top 10 and DiLuca has shown good form and has been a definite protagonist throughout.
- Androni have also been mixing it up in the breakaways and attacks with Rodriguez, Rubiano, Sella, Gavazzi and Italian Champion Pellizotti. And let's not forget that Felline was second in stage 4.
- Understandably, Acquarone wants Italian teams in their home race, so these three Italian squads were pretty much guaranteed an invite. But the fourth wild card went to Team Colombia. Sure, having an Italian manager (Claudio Corti) and being headquartered in Italy helped them get into the Giro, but this team didn't bring a single Italian in its ranks, so their spot was far from certain.. Still, they have earned the invite. Duque, Chalapud and Quintero have shown their faces quite a bit on TV. Pantano had a great stage 9 finishing third. Duarte and Atapuma seem to be talking it easy, but will most likely let lose in the last week.

If you compare what these four teams have shown and compare it to Vacansoleil, Euskaltel, Orica or FDJ I think you'll agree that they have plenty to celebrate so far. Bravo!

Vini Fantini have shown what they can do

Randomness:

- Mario Cipollini mention counter: 3
- Helmet talk counter: 11
- Euskaltel guys on the deck counter: 3
- Stage winner wearing cycling cap / baseball hat / no hat counter: 1 / 9 / 1

Krushing the Giro: Stage 10

Uran proudly wearing the Colombian flag and a cycling cap

Wow. I don't know where to start. Another great day for Colombian cycling. Uran and Betancur had amazing performances. Team Colombia and the other Colombians didn't do too well, but I'll happily take the one-two.

Final results of stage 10. The Colombian tricolor way up there, twice

Sky took over the pace-setting pretty early in the stage on the climb to the Passo Cason di Lanza. Was that a good idea? I guess depends on who you ask. Henao and Wiggo were in trouble, but Uran went on to win the stage. Is Uran the leader for Sky? Well, he told RAI (in excellent Italian, to my surprise) that Wiggins and Henao are still strong and that now Sky will have two leaders. He added that he recuperated better during the rest day than Wiggins. I don't know, the Englishman did not look good to me, but we will have to wait and see. I would not be the SkullKrusher if I didn't point out, once again, that if Uran wouldn't have been asked to wait for Wiggins on Friday, he'd be 2nd in the GC 26" behind Nibali.

AG2R are also having a great Giro. Pozzovivo and Betancur played the one-two punch perfectly up the last climb. That's two second places for Betancur in this Giro and he continues to crawl his way up the Maglia Bianca classification. AG2R has to be very happy with their two new signings. Maybe Mike Spriggs has the right idea with buying their jersey and putting it in the freezer for future enjoyment.

Mike's real refrigerator with a real AG2R jersey in it

On the other side of the spectrum, Hesjedal lost contact with 54k to go and finished over 20 minutes down. Needless to say his Giro is over. What a shame. He looked very racey at the beginning of the race last week.

How many times have I said "keep an eye on Evans"? This is the last time I say it, because everyone now realizes I was right all along.

Finally, a special and heartfelt THANK YOU to Rapha for remembering that the Giro is a cycling race and not a baseball game. Rapha (yes, I'm kissing their ass) provides Team Sky with cycling caps and it was very nice to see Uran not only wearing a cycling cap on the podium, but a winter cycling cap. Thank you Rapha!

Uran answering question in Italian wearing a proper Rapha cycling cap

Randomness:

- Mario Cipollini mention counter: 3
- Helmet talk counter: 10
- Euskaltel guys on the deck counter: 3
- Stage winner wearing cycling cap / baseball hat / no hat counter: 1 / 8 / 1 (Finally!)