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Published on Saturday, 01 June 2019 17:12

Giro d'Italia St 21

Verona to Verona

Sunday 2nd June, 15.6kms

No criterium around the bumpy streets of Rome this year, instead they face a 15.6km individual TT that takes them over a 4.5km climb right in the middle and finishes in the Roman amphitheatre in Verona. 

The 15.6kms of TT'ing in this stage makes it a total distance of 60kms on the TT bikes for the contenders at this race, something a lot of riders had mixed feelings about pre-race.. But despite the large amount of TT miles that were designed to attract Tom Dumoulin, it still looks like the climbers are going to come out on top. 

Stage 20 Review

What a crazy day today - in the end, Pelle Bilbao took the stage from the break, but that was just a footnote on a day of drama. We had early attacks blow the race up on the Manghen, Lopez kicking them off, then we had the break working very hard and entering the final climb with a lead of just over a minute. Lopez attacked, Carapaz was straight on his wheel. Landa attacked and got a gap of about 16" going over the top of the Rolle. 

Nibali attacked on the descent to the final climb, Carapaz was straight on his wheel, but Roglic and Lopez started to struggle and as they hit the final climb the were about 15" behind Nibali's group. Lopez then got taken out by a fan and started throwing slaps at him, the incident cost him about a minute in the end and all hopes of a stage victory were out the window. More bad luck on this Giro for him and us.

Nibali attacked again and again, but couldn't shift the Movistar boys, the break was reeled in but several of them were able to hang on to Nibali and co. to the final kilometre. Carapaz buried himself in the services of Landa, trying to gain him enough time to be able to take 3rd step on the podium. They ultimately achieved that, but the lead he now holds over Roglic is so slender that Roglic should be able to take him in the TT. 

Landa blew the stage as far as I'm concerned, I was sure he would take the stage win for all of the last 5kms or so.. When is he going to go, when is he going to go.. Carapaz teed him up, but instead of going he looked around at Nibali and Ciccone. Eventually he went, but with something like 400m to go, couldn't get away from Bilbao and his legendary appalling cornering and finishing once again cost him a win. We got the e/w at 6/1, and if you got on the 'to finish in the first 3' market on Bet365 in play, you did even better. but really we should have had the win. Carapaz beat Nibali though in the matchbet to land 2.2pts more there so we finished just ahead again. 

The Route

"The closing time trial on the Torricelle circuit. After the first part on wide and straight avenues, the route takes in the Torricelle climb (4.5 km with a 5% gradient and a few punchy bits). The route then descends for 4 km along wide roads, all the way to Piazza Bra and the Arena." 

Contenders

So - two races going on, one for the stage, one for the top 3 places, all the way down to the top 10 places, with only 10" between Majka and Lopez for example, and 33" between Majka and Yates.. 

Primoz Roglic will be fighting for both of course, after winning the first two time trials, he's hot favourite to make it a hat-trick and take away a consolation prize from this Giro after blowing his lead. He was sensational in the first one, he scraped home in the second, when he really should have been beaten by Victor Campanaerts who had set a cracking time in dry conditions. 

What sort of mental condition is he in now after a tough week? What are his legs like still, today was another brutal day? On paper it's another one that he should do very well in, he will fly along the flat again and will be one of the fastest up the hill, but he's had a tough three weeks. The motivation to win this will be very high though and the motivation to take back 3rd place from Landa should see him right up there. 

Victor Campanaerts has made no secret of the fact that he has stayed in this race to have a real crack at winning this TT.. He came agonisingly close to winning the second TT, his mechanical and mechanic cost him the win. He was only 20th in the opening TT, a very disappointing result for him, but he was one of the fastest on the flat and died, like many, on the hill.

He has been in very good spirits in the last week as far as I can see from his tweets, despite the debacle in the last TT, he's "counting down the mountains" and is looking forward to this TT. I think he will be very motivated to right the wrongs of the last TT and notch up the win, he's going to be a big challenger for the win. Adam Hansen was interviewed after stage 19 and he said that they are going for the win with Campa, he has been taking it easy the last few days in order to rest and have a right go at this, he said he thinks Campa will win, I am in agreement with him I think. 

Jos Van Emden is probably the next best out-and-out time triallist here, but his two TTs here have been awful, 35th in the opening TT and 134th in the second one, over 7 minutes behind Rogla. Hard to see him turn that sort of form around on this course. 

Bob Jungels looks like he's starting to come back in to a bit of form after a very disappointing first two weeks for him and his followers. There were plenty of confidence in him before the race started, with a top 10 looking a pretty solid bet, but he languishes down in 29th place, over 50 minutes down on Carapaz and doesn't really have anything positive to take out of this Giro. 

He did ok in the two other TTs though, finishing 13th in the first TT, just 23" off 3rd spot and was 7th in the second TT, only 16" off a podium spot. He also has been hitting out in breaks this week, showing a lot of power on the flatter to slightly easier climbs, but struggled when it got steeper. The 4.2-4.8% gradients of the Torcelle are much more his sort of gradients though, and if you take out the section at 7%, it's actually probably closer to 3.5-4% average. He should be able to power up that and I think he'll be close to a podium this time. 

Vincenzo Nibali surprised a lot of people in the opening TT, taking the lead for a while, beating Dumoulin, but ultimately finished a very respectable 3rd place, 23" behind Rogla. He went fast on the flat and charged up the hill. In the second TT he showed that wasn't a flash in the pan, taking 4th, just 5" off of Mollema's 3rd place. It looked for a while like Nibali would be one of the first three, but Mollema pulled off a stunning ride. 

Nibali has been hit and miss since, he has shown, as I suspected, that he just doesn't have the acceleration and the power to ride away from all his rivals any more, he even was left behind by Carapaz and Landa on Stage 17's finish. But he's still up there fighting and is on target for a top 3 finish, it looks to be secure, but he will still have to work very hard to hold on to his 2nd place from Roglic. 

Bauke Mollema did a superb TT in stage 9, but I can't see him repeating or bettering that here, he hasn't really kicked on from that in terms of landing a killer blow, he's been dropped on almost all the key stages. Ion Izagirre has been a major disappointment in this race, we've barely seen him and his two TTs saw him finish 29th and 20th, far worse than I expected. Hard to see him turn that around here either, he's been anonymous in this race. 

Simon Yates had a horrible second TT, losing any chance he had of a podium place in this race, after finishing 31st, 3'11" behind Rogla. He did far better in the first TT, the only rider that looked like he was going to challenge Rogla's time. He left his starting time to late in the evening, some saying foolishly with rain forecast, but he got away with it and did a storming TT. Then it started to fall apart for him for a week or so, then came alive in a few stages taking a 2nd and 3rd place.

Chad Haga was a surprise 6th place in the second TT, just 14" off a podium spot, he paced himself nicely that day. I say surprise, but he is US time trial champion after all, so it shouldn't be that much of a surprise. He didn't fare quite so good in the first TT, finishing down in 21st, 54" down, and he has been anonymous for the rest of the Giro too. Hard to know how he'll go in this, but I can't see him featuring on the podium. 

Other than that you have the likes of Pelle Bilbao, Josef Czerny, Brent Bookwalter, Tom Bohli, Luke Durbridge, Andrey Amador and Thomas de Gendt who could go ok, but they are fighting for 5th to 10th and not 1st to 5th. 

I'm publishing this preview early tonight as I have to go out to an event tonight, so there are no prices out at the time of writing. I will try to update the preview tomorrow morning though when I see matchbets and the full list of prices, but for now, I'd be backing Campanaerts when the prices come out, I think he'll smash it.  

Recommendations:

Back Victor Campanaerts

Matchbets

To come