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Published on Friday, 31 May 2019 19:12

Giro d'Italia St 20

Feltre - Monte Avena

Saturday 1st June, 193kms 

There will be lots of tired bodies in the race at this stage, but the organisers seem to have little pity for them, hitting them with another monster of a stage on the second last day with over 5,000m of vertical gain again. 

Another day with iconic climbs, another summit finish, but the final one of the race.. They start and finish almost in the same place, but go off on a big clockwise loop that takes them over the Cima Campo, Manghen Pass and the Rolle Pass, the Manghen and Rolle both topping out around 2,000m. And it's a long stage - 194km, with less than 40kms on flat roads, it's either up or down all day.

With the removal of the Gavia from stage 16, the Manghen has become the Cima Coppi of the race now, with 50pts now available for it instead of the usual 40 for a Cat 1. With the three Cat 2 climbs and the Cat 1 climb to the finish as well, there's a massive total of 144pts up for grabs on this stage, should someone fancy racking up a load of points. But seeing as Ciccone holds an almost unassailable lead, the likely scenarion is we'll actually see Ciccone going up the road to make it all but secure, I think he'll fancy taking the Cima Coppi too to cap off a great Giro for him, the symbolic feather in the cap.

It could be another day for the breakaway, but if any of the GC favourites want to take time ahead of the TT then they will have to make the stage hard and go all out for victory and time gaps. As such, with the race still on the line and so many riders needing to make up time, I think it will be all-out war from early in the stage and we might see a GC battle commence from possibly even the very first climb. 

Stage 19 review

Well that was a disappointing bloody break again, not one of the 'likely candidates' got in the break, none of them even tried. Esteban Chaves did though to annoy me, he decided to follow the first move of the day today and it turned out to be the key break of the day of 12 riders that built up a lead almost 10 minutes at one point. Movistar kept tapping away at the front, but the break were very strong and worked well together. 

Coming on to the final climb Chaves was the odds-on favourite to take the stage, but just couldn't get rid of Pieter Serry, Bidard and Vendrame. Chaves attacked and attacked, and just as he made one attack Vendrame unshipped his chain and tangled it up like so many times we've seen before. Chaves kicked on, dropped Serry and Bidard, but Vendrame came roaring back to take an impossible 2nd place, and if he hadn't had the mechanical then I think he'd have won the stage, he was clearly very strong and could have taken Chaves in the sprint. Very annoyed that I left Chaves and went for Nieve, only for Chaves to make the break and Nieve to miss it. 

There was an attack from Lopez of course from the GC group and he took 44" seconds on the others by the finish. Once again, if the lazy peloton hadn't given the break the stage, Lopez would have been winning the stage for us. Somehow though we turned a profit on the stage as Carapaz beat Nibali by one place, and the other matchbets all won too. Interesting to see Roglic stretch his legs though, he had them on the rivet in the last kilometre, caused a little bit of panic, but once again Carapaz was one of the first to respond to him.

The Route

A queen stage across the Dolomites, with over 5,000m elevation gain. The route is flat for 14kms, then they hit the first big climb of the day, the Cima Campo, an 18km long climb at 6% average gradient. That's followed by a 28km descent, interrupted by a little bump in the middle on the way down, but once they hit the bottom it's straight on to the Passo Manghen. 

This is another super-long climb at 24kms, averaging 7%, but getting steeper as they get closer to the top, averaging 10% for the last 6kms. Only a 16km descent off of the the Manghen though, on to a bit of a plateau for 15kms, then the 21km ascent to the Passo Rolle, which averages 4.7%, but flattens out for about 7kms in the middle, leaving the climbing parts actually closer to 6.4%. 

40kms of a descent then on to the final mountain of the 2019 Giro, up to the finish at Croce d'Aune - Mont Avena. It averages 7.3% for 6.9kms, hitting 11% max towards the middle. Although the road weaves all over the place it keeps a pretty steady gradient all the way to the finish. 

Contenders

So, the last day in the mountains, the last chance for changes to be made in the GC. Roglic cannot afford to lose any more time, Nibali needs to take back time, Yates and Lopez are going to be looking for a stage win and to maybe move up a place or two, Carapaz and Landa are in the driving seat and will be looking to take time themselves ahead of the final day TT. 

It was an easy recovery ride for most of them today, the break were allowed build a big lead as the peloton tapped out low Watts for 120kms before finally upping their effort on the final climb. That means a lot of guys saved their legs for today, and I think it is going to be a wild day. Nibali has been talking about it going to be a bit like Froome's stage 19 last year.. 

Richard Carapaz just has to mark.. but what does Mikel Landa do? Does he go out and try to blow the race up and try to ride himself on to a podium spot? I think he will, Movistar seem to be ok with him doing that, and if anyone is capable of it, I think it's Landa. He could well go on the steeper last 5kms of the Passo Rolle, kick on to pick up someone like Amador or Rojas who were in the break of the day and charge down the descent with maybe 30" on the chasing pack.

He can then take another minute or so by the finish, as behind Carapaz chases down attacks by Nibali, Lopez and Roglic and frustrates them so much Nibali starts squabbling with Roglic and they sit up and the chase loses momentum. Carapaz will have Carratero and Pedrero with him to look after him. That's how I see it going, Landa wins the stage and will come close to taking the 3rd spot on the podium, but might not have enough to hold Roglic off on the final TT, unless Roglic totally collapses. 

Hard to see Roglic collapse though, he has been strong, but just not strong enough in the last few days, although he did throw in a little attack today in the last kilometre. He has not been able to go with the sharp accelerations, he has mostly just been able to follow. Has he recovered from his mid-race dip? Will he have found some energy from somewhere to suddenly have him chasing the attacks down again and counter-attacking again himself? He will need to pull 30" or so back on Carapaz to give himself a chance of overhauling him in the TT. 

Nibali just doesn't look capable of pulling anything spectacular off tomorrow, in fact, Pozzovivo is looking better than him at the moment, maybe they should let him go and have some fun. Superman Lopez was very impressive at the finish today though - a searing attack with 4kms to go saw him very quickly pull out 40" and held it all the way to the line. If he still is with the GC group on the final climb, and no one has gone up the road already, Lopez probably wins the stage. He can attack again like today, Carapaz and Landa let him go, Nibali tries to go but stops, Roglic follows. And he's gone. 

As Adam Blythe said on Eurosport this afternoon, the top climbers are the top guys in the GC, and that's why we find the likes of Mollema and Majka farther down, they just aren't as good as the top climbers here. What will they try tomorrow? Mollema's 5th place is seriously under threat now from Lopez, he only has a 26" advantage over him now. Will he go on the attack himself to try to defend it? Unlikely, I think he'll be hanging in there and will probably be happy to finish 6th. Majka just doesn't look like he has the legs either. 

Simon Yates lost a little time again today, it was only 4", but is showed once again that he was unable to go with the big attacks. What will he do tomorrow? He's still in the top 10, in fact he's only 29" behind Majka, but 1'10" ahead of Sivakov.. I think he will ride defensively, he won't be able to go with the strong attacks, but will grind it out in order to preserve his position on the GC, possibly taking a place off of Majka. 

It's hard to rule out the break seeing as the break have taken 7 out of the last 8 stages, but I just feel that the GC men will be looking to blow it up tomorrow, so the break won't get far and the speed they will climb the Manghen and Rolle at will reduce their lead to only a minute or two starting the final climb and they'll be passed at warp speed about 5kms from the finish. 

If we were to look at break candidates, then I'd go for someone like Nieve again, as he was tasked with trying to get in the break today but failed, according to Lucas Hamilton (nice one Snowy), Ciccone or Masnada. Other than that, the break will probably have Caruso or another Bahrain rider, Hirt or Boaro or another Astana rider or two, Rojas or Amador from Movistar and maybe a rider or two from Jumbo-Visma, not that they'll be much assistance to Roglic later anyway though.. 

The Passo Manghen will probably be ridden pretty hard by Bahrain and Astana to get rid of as many support riders of Roglic as possible, maybe even Pedrero and Carretero for Movistar. There will be a bit of respite on the descent and on the flattish section for the next 25kms or so, so unless some teams keep the pressure on at the front, we could see some of the dropped riders start to get back on again ahead of the Rolle.

I think we will get attacks on the last 5kms of the Rolle though, with riders trying to get a head start ahead of the final climb. We might even see Nibali try to jump away and attack on the descent. The last 7kms of the Croce d'Aune are really hard though - averaging 7.3% - perfect Landa territory. He could put some serious time in to Nibali and Roglic in the last 5kms if they are not on a great day. We could even see a situation where Lopez goes with Landa, works with Landa and Landa gives him the stage, if he has helped him in to 3rd place.. I can see them 1-2 tomorrow and they're the only two riders I'm interested in. 

Recommendations:

2pts win on M A Lopez at 3/1 (you might get better on Betfair when they load it up)

1pt e/w on Mikel Landa at 8/1 

In play, have another 2pts on Landa to finish in the top 3 with Bet365, you'll probably get something like 5/4 or so. 

Matchbets

Carthy to beat Yates and Zakarin to beat Sivakov - 2pts at 11/8

Carapaz to beat Nibali - 2pts at 11/10