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Published on Tuesday, 21 May 2019 00:10

Giro d'Italia St 11

Carpi - Novi Ligure

Wednesday 22nd May, 206kms

An almost identical stage to stage 10, but this time we have to endure 206kms of flat nothingness along the Po valley. Lots of long, straight, flat, open roads, although there is a slightly uphill finish to this sprint at least. 

Not a lot to say about this one really, a carbon-copy you'd think of stage 10, but will it end up the same result? One point of note, not that it will make an iota of difference to the result, is that after Casteggio with 170kms gone the road crosses terrain familiar to Milan San Remo, going through a lot of the towns that dot the route. 

Stage 10 Review

As I said in my tweet this afternoon, today's stage was nothing, nothing, nothing, BANG! Massive crash in the last kilometre, Ackermann goes down after touching his leadout man Selig's wheel and takes a bunch of guys with him, including our outside shot Mareczko who was in a great position on Ackers' wheel. Jacopo Guarnieri was superb for Groupama, leading Démare up the left of the road, while Viviani chose the wrong wheel to be on by diving to his right after Ewan.

Viviani got past Ewan, but he couldn't catch Démare who landed a bit of a surprise with that win against the three other 'faster' sprinters. It was a great result for him and us from the Points jersey point of view, he also took points at the first intermediate and has moved to within just 1pt of Ackermann now, and is in a great position to take over from him tomorrow. Ackermann was pretty cut up and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see him call it a day shortly. 

Viviani can't buy a win.. DQS did all the hard work, Sabatini was there for him, but he just couldn't decide what to do again, picking the wrong wheel, waiting to start his sprint, but it was too late. I think he totally underestimated and disrespected Démare by choosing to ignore him and go after Ewan, he paid the price. 

We got unlucky with Marezcko crashing and a second place again with Viviani, but we got lucky with the matchbets, both came in, despite the chaos. It resulted in a small 1.2pt profit, but it keeps us ticking along. 2nd with Gallopin, Ewan's win, small profit on the TT and today's small profit.. four ok days, but we're close to landing a decent result one of these days. 

The Route

"This flat stage leads through the Po Plain, all the way to the foothills of the Ligurian Apennines. The route travels across Reggio Emilia, Parma, Piacenza, Voghera and Tortona, heading for the final sprint in the city of the Campionissimi." 

Past Piacenza, the route takes the former Statale Padana Inferiore all the way to the finish, passing through several cities that have often been featured in the Giro route, and in the Milano-Sanremo finale.

Not a lot to really challenge the riders here at all at the finish, a 90 degree right-hander with 3kms to go and then it's straight as an arrow all the way to the line, with a slightly uphill last kilometre, around 1.5% gradient.  

Contenders and Favourites

A very similar stage to today, only a lot longer. There will be three sprinters less going for the win though with Moschetti, Marezcko and Ackermann all on the injured list. Will Viviani finally get his win? You'd think he'd surely be able to win finally, in his last chance possibly, with Ackermann out of the way, but it really does look like his confidence is low and his legs aren't great. Even Selig nearly beat him today. 

Arnaud Démare showed real strength today to start his sprint from a long way out and to hold it all the way to the line. Guarnieri was great, if he can reproduce that leadout for him again tomorrow, Démare has to have a big chance of winning again, especially as it is slightly uphill, it will suit him more than some. 

Caleb Ewan looked in a great position heading in to the last 500m with Jasper de Buyst taking a big turn.. but then he couldn't kick on, he's not really one for a long sprint. This one is even longer, so it will be hard for him to do a long sprint, but the uphill gradient will help him a little bit. 

Giacomo Nizzolo is getting closer, he seems to be getting fitter and stronger as the race goes on. He still seems to lack the sprint to beat the top guys here, but he might not be far away again. Davide Cimolai similar, he is always just lurking in the shadows outside the top 5, he'll be top 10 again, but not podium. And then we have Rudiger Selig.. With Ackermann out of the sprint today he went for it himself and managed to finish 3rd ahead of Ewan, a pretty impressive sprint from the lead-out man.

As it's highly likely that Ackermann will not even be sprinting tomorrow, maybe Selig will get the chance to go for it again. The onus will not be on Bora to make any effort to control things now, so they might be able to sit in and have Schwarzmann try to pull him in to position in the last 300m and let him go to see how he gets on. I think it would be a big surprise to see him podium again though. 

The bookies have made Viviani the 2/1 favourite, and to be honest I am reluctant to back him, even at that price given how he went today. Démare isn't much bigger at just 5/2 but he would be a bit more attractive to me given what we saw today. He will have the confidence, his team will be flying for him and he'll be bursting a gut to get in to that Ciclamino jersey - ALLEZ NONO! Of course, we've seen it's very difficult these days to notch two stage wins up in a row in any race, but he has a great chance here I think. 

Not a day to get heavily involved in though, I'm looking forward to Thursday's stage though, have lots of thoughts on break candidates for what should be a break stage I think. But I can't see Ackermann involved, he'll be very sore tonight and will have a rough night's sleep, and will be stiff and sore tomorrow too - we may not even see him sprinting at all. 

Recomendations

1pt win on Arnaud Démare at 5/2

Matchbets

Nizzolo to beat Lonardi and Viviani to beat Ackermann - 3pts at 4/6