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Published on Tuesday, 09 May 2017 22:54

Giro d'Italia St 5

Pedara to Messina 

Wed 10th May, 157kms 

This stage will be all about a celebration of Vincenzo Nibali, as the stage heads to his home town of Messina, in a stage that could be one for the break. It starts out lumpy but the latter half of the stage is pretty flat and it end in a 6.3km circuit around Messina. 

This should be just another straight-forward sprint stage, but can the break of the day hold on with a tail-wind behind them all day? They will certainly have the right terrain at the start of the stage to help establish a good lead for the break, but the long flat run-in to Messina for the last 55kms will make it hard for any break to hold on. 

Well that was an 'interesting' stage today, with Jan Polanc hanging on to win by 19" while behind we had a complete stalemate amongst the GC candidates, with only Ilnur Zakarin making a successful escape to claw back 10" of what he had lost before now. Geraint Thomas nabbed 3rd on the line from Pinot, Pinot not even getting placed for his 9/2 backers.. It meant Thomas took 4 bonus seconds on the line, to move him up to 2nd overall behind the mighty Bob Jungels who takes over the leader's jersey from his team-mate, just reward for the work he put in to Gaviria's stage win. 

No luck with our stage picks, Yates was 8th, Pozzovivo 13th, Costa 26th, but Costa lost 36" which doesn't bode well for his top 10 chances.. But we had a clean-sweep on the matchbets, including the nice 13/8 on Yates beating Quintana, to land an overall profit of 3pts, good to have a positive day. Cannondale had a good day, leaping to the top of the team's classification and have been cut to evens for the team prize.

So we didn't really learn anything today, Nibali tried an attack late on but got nowhere, the head-wind was hampering all attempts at escaping late on. Rolland tried an attack, but didn't get far either, but he could well win a stage later in this race if he gets in the right break. No moves from Quintana or the other GC guys, although Kruijswijk crashed near the bottom of Etna and Landa punctured, blunting their chances. Dumoulin, Mollema, Pinot and the rest didn't do anything, it was like slow motion for the last few kilometres. 

The Route

This is a stage of two halfs with the first half being quite hilly and the second half almost totally flat as they head to a circuit finish in Messina. The stage starts from Pedara, a new stage town as far as the Giro is concerned, and the first 40kms are fairly complex, as the route passes through several urban areas, with roundabouts, traffic dividers, pedestrian islands, setts paving and speed bumps being the main obstacles.

As they head north they hit the only categorised climb of the day in the 5km pull up to Andronico Sant'Alfio (or Fornazzo as it also seems to be known as).. It's not that tough at just 5% average though, but we could see Teklehaimanot in the break again trying to pick up the few points. This is followed by  a fast-running and technical descent. The road gets quite narrow in Castiglione di Sicilia so they'll have to be careful.

Next, the route climbs up the uncategorised little lump to Taormina (right) after 98kms (3.1kms at 4.9%) but it's probably too far out to make any difference to the outcome of the stage. After that it descends to the feed zone along narrow roads, but from there the roadway becomes wider and mostly straight, leading to the final circuit in Messina (which has only once ever hosted a stage finish in 1972).

The final 6.3km circuit is done just the once, on wide and straight avenues alternating with 90-degree bends. There will be a crucial U-turn bend that comes with just 1,500m to go, positioning will be crucial ahead of the long home straight (descending slightly in the first part) that leads all the way to the finish. The home stretch is 1,500m long, on a 7.5m wide, flat road, perfect for a fast sprint.

The weather looks like being another nice, sunny day, but they will have a tail-wind all day as they head north, around 11mph. It becomes a head-wind as they hit the finishing straight though and it will make for an interesting sprint as the leadouts will not want to commit too early with a 1500m finishing straight and the sprinters themselves will want to leave it as late as possible to make their move. 

Contenders and Favourites

Break or sprint, sprint or break? The break will go early on, and depending on who is in it, they may or may not be caught before the intermediate sprints which come with 60kms and 40kms to go. Despite the hilly looking start though there is only a Cat 4 climb points up for grabs, so we might not see the KOM chasers go in the break wasting a lot of energy for so little. I was thinking for a little while that the likes of Nizzolo and Sbaragli might try to get in the break so that they can maybe fight out the intermediate sprints, but that would ruin their chances of a stage win, it's unlikely they will go all the way to the finish. But maybe Nizzolo might decide that he wouldn't have a chance against Ewan, Greipel and Gaviria for now and that the points for the intermediates are more achievable. 

It's more than likely to be that the peloton catches the break though in the run-in, possibly as early as the first intermediate sprint, if not there's a good chance by the second one with 41kms to go. Then it will be a fast charge to the line for the last 50kms, with Quickstep, Orica and Lotto Soudal all helping to take control of the race and keep the pace high. They could well do the last 50kms in an hour, we could even see Quickstep try to split things up again if the wind whips in from the sea. 

Fernando Gaviria hadn't been feeling so well in the first few stages we now hear, sort of explains his sub-par performances a little. Whether he'd have been able to beat Ewan and Greipel in that sprint on stage 3 if they were with him is a moot point, they weren't thanks to the superb work by the Quicksteppers, where were they in the first few stages when he needed such coordination and aggression?! Gaviria easily won the sprint, but that was against a non-sprinter in Rudi Selig and an exhausted Nizzolo who had been worked over in the run-in. Is he firing on all cylinders now? He could well be, he will be on cloud nine after winning that stage in front of his parents and taking the pink jersey, and he'll have had effectively two rest days as he just plodded up Mount Etna. 

I think André Greipel was very unlucky in stage 3, he had the wherewithall and power to be with the Quicksteppers when they made the split, but he seemed to get a bump and he seemed to have some derailleur issues as he suddenly went backwards and you could see him visibly trying to sort his gears out before he could get going again, but it was too late, the bird had flown. He could well have beaten Gaviria at the finish, but in the circumstances, QS would have worked him over too and he might have been too tired.

He had already to me spent far too long in the wind before that, he could see that something was going to happen, but he had no team-mates around him to bring him up or shelter him, so he had to do the jumping around to the front on his own. So maybe he wouldn't have beaten Gaviria anyway. Lotto-Soudal need to up their game for him though again and get him in to the right position coming around that roundabout, they can't go too early either though, Greipel needs to go with 200m to go maximum. If Greipel gets a good position and Quickstep are a little ragged again with Gaviria, Greipel could well take his second stage win. 

Caleb Ewan has been unlucky in this race so far, he pulled his shoe out of his pedal in stage 2 when the stage was there for the taking and in stage 3 he lost out in the split, then won the bunch sprint behind for 9th place, ahead of Modolo and Greipel. Some doubted he'd be able to get the power down on the flagstone surface on the finish of stage 3 because of the way he sprints, but he clearly was just so fast it just didn't matter. Alexander Edmonson, Michael Hepburn, Chris Juul Jensen and Luca Mezgec can take him to a great position turning that roundabout, he will be in the first 15 or so and they can time it well to deliver him on the wheel of Greipel or Gaviria to pounce late. 

Sam Bennett - the mystery of his poor performances is a mystery no more, as he outlined in his Irish Independent column just how sick he has been. He was feeling poorly after stage 1 and said he spent almost as much time on the toilet as he did sleeping, and he almost didn't finish the stage the next day. He's had a few days to recover now though and he said that he was already starting to feel better during Sunday's stage, he said the legs were fine, but he just had no power. He also lost 3kgs in weight as he was so sick, hopefully he hasn't lost too much power with it, but if not, that weight loss might help him on some of the later stages! I think I might wait and see how he gets on tomorrow, he may need a stage or two to get back in to it. 

Giacomo Nizzolo will be there or thereabouts too but may not have the top speed to beat the guys above, he might be content to take 4th to 10th and pick up a few points. Sacha Modolo has been very strange so far in this race, he got cramps apparently in stage 2 and that's why he didn't sprint, but Ferrari did instead. Then he turned around and finished 2nd to Ewan in the bunch for 9th, ahead of Greipel, so he seemed to be better again.. who knows where he will finish this time, but he should be 4th to 10th. Kristian Sbaragli has been pretty consistent in the sprints too, and has been sprinting for intermediate sprints in stage 3, with Nathan Haas leading him out. Ryan Gibbons and Philip Bauhaus have also been involved, they might top 10 it as well again, but I can't see them breaking the podium unless there is some incident affects the top sprinters in the final kilometres..

I think it will be a sprint again, and with the conditions and with the layout of the road in the last few kilometres, I give Orica-Scott a great chance of finally delivering with Caleb Ewan, but it will be close between him and his two arch-rivals Greipel and Gaviria.   

Recommendations:

2pts win on Caleb Ewan at 6/4 with various

Matchbets

Gaviria to beat Nizzolo and Bauhaus to beat Mareczko - 2pts on the double at 5/4 with 365

Pinot to beat Zakarin - 2pts at 4/6 

**Added in-play**

Gibbons to beat Stuyven - 3pts at 10/11 with WillHill

add Gaviria to beat Nizzolo to make it a 6/4 double - 2pts