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Published on Friday, 18 May 2018 22:12

Giro d'Italia St 14

SV Al Tagliamento - Zoncolan

Saturday 20th May, 186kms 

Stage 14 in 2017 saw them take on the mythical climb to Oropa, this year they go even more mythical with a finish on the hardest climb in Europe, the Monte Zoncolan. Get those crampons on boys.. 

Another hard day in the saddle for the riders, with seven climbs to get over, of which five are categorised - a Cat 2, three Cat 3s and a finish on the Cat 1 Zoncolan. It's a monster day, finishing on the monster climb of the Zoncolan, widely regarded as the toughest climb in Europe. It averages 12% for 10kms, frequently hitting the mid to high teens, and maxing out at 22%. 

It was last used in the Giro in 2014, when Mick Rogers of all people won an incredible stage. Part of a large early breakaway that blew up on the Zoncolan, Franco Pellizotti and Francesco Bongiorno forged clear with Rogers. Pellizotti was the first to crack, but suddenly Bongiorno's chances took a dramatic turn for the worse with just 2.9kms left.

The spectators had been excessively invasive all stage, but one guy, ironically in a world champions jersey, took it upon himself to push Bongiorno. The force caused the Bardiani rider to unclip and stop and with it his chance of victory went up in smoke. Rogers forged on on his own, and the shock seemed to badly affect Bongiorno as he cracked in the last 2kms and was caught and passed by a resurgent Pellizotti. The young Italian did manage to take 3rd place, while behind Quintana all but guaranteed his overall victory when he led home Rigoberto Uran who sealed 2nd place in the GC. 

Stage 12 Review

Viviani gets back on track, a powerful sprint sees him take his 3rd stage win. Bennett was unlucky I think, but his positioning was poor in the final 300m and he started from way too far back and had to come around the outside. Stybar had done a great, if a little nasty job on him when he bumped him off Viviani's wheel a few times in the closing kilometres, they just didn't let Sam settle on his wheel this time. 

Van Poppel got up again for us, so the 3.5pts win on him to come top 3 covered the loss on Bennett. Unfortunately for us, Gibbons decided to pick today to sprint to a good finish, blowing the double and treble, all the others won, Venturini beat Planckaert by just one place.. No changes in the GC, Chaves lost more time. 

The Route

What a stage this could be. It's long, at 186kms (19kms longer than in 2014) and it's going to be hard practically all day. The stage starts from virtually sea-level at San Vito Al Tagliamento and the first 40kms are a gentle drag upwards until they reach the first hill of the day, the Cat 3 Monte de Ragogna, it's short at just 2.75kms, but it averages 10.3% and hits a max of 16%. 

It rolls along for the next 50kms or so until the second Cat 3 of the day is reached with 98kms gone. The Avaglio is not far at all from the Zoncolan, the road runs almost parallel to it before they head off east in a horseshoe shape that takes them through the second intermediate sprint at Paularo and the start of the Cat 2 Passo Duran. The Duran is short again at just 4.4kms, but averages 9.6%, with parts hitting double digits and up as much as 18%. 

10kms of a descent and they are climbing again, this time it's another Cat 3, the Sella Valvalda which is 7.6kms long.. It starts off easy enough, but ramps up steeply towards the middle of it, averaging 8.8% for 3kms. A quick descent down to Ovaro and they go through the 'Gates of Hell' to enter the last 10km pull up to the Monte Zoncolan summit finish. This is a brutally hard climb where the riders go past the spectators at barely walking pace, which can lead to all sorts of encroachment problems like we saw last time up with Bongiorno.

There is a section from just over 2kms in to just over 6kms which averages 15.4%, and then the next 2kms average 13.9%.. It 'eases' slightly for the last 2kms, averaging 9%, but by this point they are on their knees so it probably doesn't feel like it's easing at all... And then there's the last pull up to the finish line at 10%.. 

Contenders and Favourites

So what's it going to be? Break or the GC? It's a tough one to call.. It will have to be a very strong break to make it, it will take a very good climber to hold on and win the stage. It probably all depends on what M-S decide they want to do.. They were happy to let the stage pan out whatever way it did they said on stage 11 to Osimo,

Yates said they were happy not to chase and should it come back together he would go for the stage. They were pulling for a while though at the start to keep the break within about four mins, probably to break their morale a little, then they sat back and let the likes of Lotto Fixall do the the chasing. If they decide that they want to let the break take it, take it easy for most of the stage, then go hard on the final two climbs we might see the break make it. 

This plan might make sense, as all the other teams probably fear what Yates could do to them on the Zoncolan, so they will probably just save their legs too for that final challenge. M-S will probably try to keep Haig, Nieve, Juul-Jensen and Kreuziger for the final two climbs, Haig might burn himself on the penultimate climb to try to dispose of or tire some rivals and Nieve and Kreuziger will take over to set a pace on the Zoncolan until Yates will take over.

I know Yates wants all the time he can get from Dumoulin ahead of the TT, and winning the stage will give him an extra 10", but chasing hard for the stage victory might do a lot of damage to the team and they still have a lot of racing to do next week. 

If it does become a GC battle, then Simon Yates would seem to be the obvious pick again. He is just so light and so strong at the moment that he is just riding away from the others when he feels like it. He has matched everything thrown at him so far, even when he has looked slightly out of position or maybe missing a move he just calmly rides back up to the leaders, and then rides away from them.

He will have never faced anything like the Zoncolan in his career though, the closest I can find to it that he has ridden well on in a Grand Tour is on stage 10 of the 2016 Vuelta to Lagos de Cavadonga, which averages around 9% for 11kms, hitting 10-12% in parts. That day he finished 9th, 1'09" down on Nairo Quintana and 44" down on Froome. But on the Angliru he was miles off the pace, same on the Calar Alto, Sierra Nevada and Cumbre Del Sol.

People are getting carried away with his performances so far, but if he puts in a ride like he did on any of these stages in the Vuelta last year, he is going to struggle. This is a really big test for him, he needs to take more time ahead of the TT, but he can't go too far in to the red or he could really suffer in the final week. 

I say riding away from everyone, but Tom Dumoulin was excellent on Wednesday, he probably climbed the final climb in the same time as Yates, it was just Yates got that gap at the start when he surprised everyone and attacked, Dumoulin stayed with him the whole way up and even closed the gap to just 2" by the end. People are worried that Dumoulin will get dropped by the smaller, lighter climbers on this brutally steep slope.. but then again we thought that last year and he did alright there, even dropping Quintana on a few hill-top finishes. 

He has a lot of power. He is very, very light for such a tall guy (astonishingly thin in the flesh) and he has the pacing ability and abiity to settle in to a TT style rhythm that could well see him just grind up this hill within sight of the lighter goats. I have a feeling he won't be able to stay with the sudden attacks, but will come back at them time and time again, and will limit his losses to a manageable amount. And who knows, if he grinds them in to submission, he might find the strength at the finish to sprint to victory and crush them like he did on Oropa last year. 

Domenico Pozzovivo has been bouncing around at the front a lot and managed to rescue himself from a tricky situation on Thursday when he got caught in the 'Viviani' group off the back, but got back on with minimum fuss really. He is just 53kgs in weight, that's 16kgs lighter than Dumoulin for example, it's like TomDum is carrying two extra bikes on his shoulders going up the Zoncolan! He is sure to be involved in the front of the race, he is looking strong and attentive and will be able to react to the moves by the likes of Yates and Lopez if they start attacking.

It will be interesting to see if he just puts his head down and goes for it on his own, he is just 14" off the podium but 1'18" off the lead, and Dumoulin will take 2-3 mins off him in the TT.. So he has to go on the attack.. whether he can make it count is another question, he hasn't looked capable of it so far.  

Thibaut Pinot has been stealthy so far.. covering lots of moves, chasing Yates as much as he can and currently sits in the 3rd podium spot. He will lose time to Dumoulin in the TT too, but is riding very well and should take some time off the climbers around him in the TT. He has done well on tough climbs in the past, on the climb to Alpe di Pampeago in the Tour of the Alps he was the only one able to stay with Lopez and the other Colombian Sosa, he climbed really well that week to take the overall.

On the climb to Oropa last year he lost a bit of ground to Dumoulin, finishing 5th, 35" down but otherwise climbed well in the Giro.. I think he will grind and grind like Dumoulin, staying close, but it will be hard for him to outgun the lighter guys I think. We do know that he can finish powerfully at the end of a big climb though, and if the long distance has taken the sting out of the legs of Yates, he has a good chance of getting up there for the podium at the very least.

Miguel Angel Lopez - not what we expected of him so far... the Colombian 'Superman' has been very disappointing and finds himself outside the top ten, 3'17" down on GC. He found himself caught out behind the crash on the streets of Osimo and lost 30" to Yates there, but he did well to just lose 30" considering he was tangled up like that. Froome was caught up in the same crash, but came home 10" later than him. 

He did ok on the Gran Sasso stage, but lost 12" to Yates and Pinot, was a little worrying that he wasn't able to go with them at the finish, but I think on a longer, harder climb like this he will do better, the higher we go the more comfortable the Colombian should feel. He is 65kg, which is surprisingly a lot heavier than Pozzovivo, he doesn't look that much heavier, but is still a lot lighter than the likes of TomDum...

Surprise of the day for me today though is that he is heavier than Pinot, I was sure Pinot would have been heavier. I think he has to do something here or his race is definitely over. If he can attack and take 30-40" and the bonus seconds here, he'll be back towards the top 6 and has something to go for on the final three mountain stages. But will he be capable of that given what we've seen so far? I'm not sure.  

Davide Formolo is getting stronger and stronger is seems and will be ruing his bad day on Etna where he lost 5 mins, he'd be sitting in 3rd place at the moment otherwise. He does seem to have much better legs now, as evidenced by his performances on Montevergine (2nd), Gran Sasso (6th) and Osimo (3rd), but they're a lot easier than what he faces here, and a bit more akin to Etna where he had a disaster. On the big stages like Blockhaus and Oropa last year thought he lost a lot of time and I can't have him for this one. 

Richard Carapaz - what can he deliver? He has been brilliant so far, he is ruining our 'without Lopez' bet on O'Connor, I'm hoping he fades at some point! But could this be it, or will he just pull further away? Sitting in 6th overall, winner of the stage to Montevergine with that blistering late attack, can he do something similar here? It was a powerful attack, but he was fading badly at the end, the peloton almost caught him again.

This is a very different climb altogether of course, how will he fare on something as brutal as Zoncolan? Well if he rides as well as he did on the Angliru last year, he might do just fine.. He was 11th that day, 1'46" behind Contador, ahead of the likes of Woods and Lopez. I think I want to have him onside if it does come back together, he's 28/1 and he might be able to sneak on to a podium at least, could jump away near the end if they're all watching Yates. 

Carlos Betancur - who know what he will do tomorrow, he could go in the break, he could stay with the GC men and try to attack, he has shown himself to be a bit lively at times in this race. But I can't hold much faith in him. Will Sergio Henao be let off the leash? If Froome is struggling will they let him go for it? It's possible.. But I am not sure I want to take that gamble on.. He is 80/1 though, maybe one to watch in play to see how Froome is looking. 

Esteban Chaves is either playing an incredible game of bluff (he lost another 15 mins today) or he really is sick or something.. I think it's he's struggling, he may not even make it through to the TT next Tuesday. 

Alexandre Geniez could be a dark horse here too, I would have backed him if he hadn't lost just 4'33" on the GC, he would have been a nice one to try to get in the break.. He still could try to get in a break, maybe later in the stage on the Ravascletto maybe, some of the guys just outside the top 10 might try to get away and steal a minute or so ahead of the Zoncolan. 

Sam Oomen will be working for Dumoulin you'd think, but they might send him in a break to be up the hill in case Tom needs him later on, Fabio Aru could be anything too, he hasn't really showed enough to me yet though to say he'll be up there, let's see how he gets on and think about what he can do next week. Chris Froome.. what about it then? Does he make his move? Does he go out the back door and lose another minute or more? I think it's the latter. 

And so on to the breakers.. I give the break a 60/40 chance of hanging on.. who's going to chase only for Yates to mug them all and take more bonus seconds and possibly a time gap? Let M-S try to control the race, let them do all the work and keep your team-mates wrapped up for as long as possible. That could mean that a good strong break will have a chance.. But they need several minutes starting the Zoncolan.. possibly up to 4 mins. 

A prime pick for the break then is Giulio Ciccone.. The Bardiani man has been active so far and he sits 6th in the KOM competition, there are lots of points on offer today before they even get to the Zoncolan. He is also a decent climber as we know and won't be afraid to attack away from the rest of the break if they get to the Zonc with a lead. He's just 58kgs, so very light too, I think he'll be involved.. He's just 12/1 now though after opening at 14/1, and he's just going to be a win bet for me, I think he either wins or comes nowhere. 

And who else for the break? Well last time they came up here in 2014, the best placed of the riders who are here again this year was Nicholas Roche of all people.. He had been in the break and it was the break who made up all the first riders home. I can't see him being up there tomorrow based on how poorly he's been riding so far.

Another rider who was up there that day too was Georg Preidler, who finished 7th, less than 2 mins behind Rogers. He is a far better rider these days and we may see FDJ send him up the road in case Pinot needs him later. They could also send Sebastien Reichenbach up the road, but I think he's more likely to stay beside Pinot. He's 400/1 and he's worth a shot.

Mattia Cattaneo finished 11th last time up here, he's another that's 400/1 and worth a few pennies too, Androni are sure to try to get someone in the break. Robert Gesink has been very quiet, but this is the sort of stage he should like and he has the power and climbing skills for a finish like this one.. He won on the Aubisque two years ago after a monster stage like this one with three Cat 1s before the Aubisque, he's out of the GC, so he's free to go. 

Fausto Masnada, Jan Hirt, Joe Dombrowski, Ruben Plaza, Igor Anton and John Darwin Atapuma are others who could go in the break, but the other guy who I like for this is Woet Poels.. I think Froome might struggle as I said before, so why not send Poels up the road.. he's good on climbs like this and he's been saving his energy possibly for this final week.. Another to have just a win bet on I think for an interest if he gets in the break.. Or he might even attack early on the Zoncolan too. 

So an absolute lottery tomorrow I think, but whatever happens it's going to be a classic. We have the first real battle for the GC men you could say, I know we've had Yates destroy them a few times aleady, but tomorrow is his first real and proper test of his GC credentials. I don't think Pinot, Dumoulin or Pozzo will be far away, and Richard Carapaz could continue to surprise in this race. Yates looks the obvious pick given how well he has finished stages so far, but he's too short for me at 3/1, he'll be a similar price in play tomorrow and we can think about backing him if it looks like coming back together.  So a few bets going on the break candidates and a few on GC men, hopefully we'll get a few in the hunt.  

Recommendations:

1pt win on Richard Carapaz at 25/1 

0.75pt win on Guilio Ciccone at 12/1

0.75pt win on Robert Gesink at 25/1

0.3pts win on Woet Poels at 66/1

0.2pts win on Georg Preidler at 400/1

0.2pts win on Matteo Cattaneo at 350/1

Matchbets: 

Poels to beat Henao - 2pts at 4/6

Dennis to beat Schachmann, Geniez to beat Bilbao - 3pts on the double at evens

Add Pinot to beat Formolo to make it a treble, 2pts on that at 1.8/1

Carapaz to beat Bennett - 3pts at 8/11

Aru to beat Froome - 2pts at evens