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Published on Wednesday, 26 May 2021 21:32

Giro d'Italia St 18

Rovereto - Stradella

Thursday 27th May, 231kms 

A mini rest day ahead of the final push. An easy stage along the Po Plains, with a few bumps near the finish to maybe give us an interesting finish. Don't expect any GC action today, they will all be thinking of the 3 days to come.. 

The only thing of note to say really about the stage is that it's 231kms long, quite a distance for the 18th stage of the race. It's not quite as long as the 235km stage last year at a similar point in last year's race which was hit by foul weather conditions and a rider protest that saw the stage shortened to just 124kms and the break winning by almost 12 minutes.. Luckily the weather is far better this year, looks like it will be the best day they'll have had so far, with almost no wind, no rain and temperatures up to 25 degrees. 

Maybe they are hoping for some fireworks at the finish from some of the stronger GC guys that could put some of their tireder rivals in trouble, there are a few short but steep kicks in the last 15kms that could catch some out if they're napping. If it does come down to a bunch finish though, we might not see all of the sprinters there, could be another one for Mr. Sagan.. There's not many sprinters left anyway in the race, with Merlier, Ewan, Groenewegen and Nizzolo all after going home. 

Stage 17 Review

Huge battle for the break, it eventually went and we had Pedrero and Martin in it. Brambilla tried to bridge but failed, Warbasse was on the attack earlier but that got pulled back too. They built a lead of over 5 minutes pretty quickly as it looked like Ineos might be happy to let them go (Moscon was up there) but then BEX come to the front for some reason and rode hard for 50kms or so and brought the gap down to around 2'30" by the top of the Valentino. 

By that stage though, Martin had pulled away from the break with Pedrero and Moscon, and Bouchard yo-yo'd back and forth from being dropped one minute to coming through and taking the 40 KOM points at the top. On the descent, a crash on a bend saw 3 Trek riders come down on a bend with Bilbao, Shultz, Nieve and Remco Evenepoel who was battling to hang on to the back. Ciccone and Nibali were two involved, Ciccone battled his way back to through the cars, then had to change his bike, then battled his way back to the peloton again, only to be dropped when the road got steep. Vlasov was also in big trouble, getting dropped very early on the climb. 

Up front, Martin kicked away from the others who were just not pulling hard enough and had a 1'25" lead with 8kms to go and the peloton coming fast. 5kms to go, it had barely changed and it was starting to get really exciting. Suddenly there was a detonation in the peloton and Carthy, Bardet and Bettiol were being shelled as Yates attacked up front. At first, Bernal responded and jumped on his wheel, but it didn't last long, and we saw the first moment of weakness from Bernal in this race, as he was quickly distanced. 

Dan kept chugging away brilliantly, with Yates and Almeida now coming after him on their own, they had dropped Caruso and the rest. But Dan said after that he knew he just had to get to 2.5kms to go and go full gas, that he could break them as he could hold the gap. And that's what he did, to take an incredible stage win and land a big winner for us. With the matchbets all winning too, for once, we landed 30.3pts today. 

Bernal was dragged to the line by Martinez, and only gave up 3" to his closest rival Caruso, but it was a warning signal today... Is his back problem resurfacing? Was it just one bad day or the first signs of a potential collapse? Either way, he still has a lead of 2'21" to Caruso and 3'23" to Yates - that's still quite a margin he has. He has popped from 1.08 this morning on Betfair though to 1.35 so some are getting a little worried for Bernal it seems. 

It was a huge surprise to see Bernal fall away like that though, he has been imperious up until now.. It makes the rest of the race a lot more interesting now though, Yates senses blood and not just for a podium or even second place, but he will look to stick the knife in a wounded Bernal. 

The Route

Not a lot to say about it, a flat run south-west along the Po valley for almost 200kms with barely a speedbump on the road to get over. It does get a bit interesting as they enter the last 35kms and they take a little trip up in to the Pavese hills. 

First up is a drag at 4.1% for 3.4kms, quickly followed by a Cat 4 climb to Castana that averages 3.9% for a longer 5.3kms, hitting 6.8% for 1km. Then after 7kms of a descent there's a steeper one that averages 7.5% for 1.4kms berfore they race through the intermediate sprint with just 9.5kms to go and straight on to the final climb up Carneto Pavese, which averages 5.7% for 2.6kms. From the top there's just 6kms left, 3kms are descending through 5 or 6 tricky bends, before a pretty straight last 3kms run to the line. 

Contenders

This could be another one for the break, but it's a long day to be up the road in probably a small group - there's 196kms of flat, boring roads before it gets interesting. And it's the day before the road kicks upwards again for the savage finish to Alpe di Mera.. so a lot of guys will be saving the legs for the last three days coming up. But others will be looking at this as their last opportunity - Rouleurs and Sprinters. 

Rouleurs like Cavagna and the like won't mind a day of flat lands rolling at high power and will look to build a lead of 10-12 minutes and hold off the peloton over the closing circuit. We might even get the likes of Gaviria try to infiltrate it to see if he can overhaul Sagan with the bonus points and the finish points if it comes down to a sprint amongst a small group.

I'm wasn't sure at first whether Sagan will go in the break, unless he decides to mark Gaviria or Cimolai who might be tempted. I thought he might be happy to sit in, let Bora monitor the breaks, chase them down if they don't like them, then when they are happy with a small break of 5 or 6 from the wildcard teams they roll and keep the lead around 7 minutes, which they'll pull back with 30-40kms to go, in time for the final hills. 

Then we will probably see Bora gun it again over the four hills in the 25kms from 35kms to go until 10kms to go, looking to cause the kind of damage they caused on Stage 10 to Foligno. That day the big hill was further out and longer, topping out at 40kms to go and averaging 5% for nearly 7kms, but actually a lot of the damage was done on the preceding uncategorised climb (6kms at 3.8%), which put Groenewegen out the back door. It was the sheer pace that Bora were setting that caused all the damage, Merlier, Dekker and lots of other guys couldn't hack it. 

But the more I think about it, Sagan is good at getting in breaks when he wants to, and it might be a lot easier for the team to try to do like Israel today with Martin and his team-mates who dragged him in to every break that tried to go. Then Sagan can share the work all day, maybe with a team-mate like Grosschartner, and behind you have a weakened Israel , UAE and Cofidis maybe doing the chasing, but that's about it.. And if UAE or Cofidis get someone in the break, then they could make it all the way and Ineos and Bernal take a day of rest. 

This stage has four tough little hills in succession, but the Cat 4 climb, the Castana, isn't that hard, and goes up in steps with four sections of 500m that are almost flat. But if the peloton is together, you can be sure that it will be in the opening 2.5kms that Bora will look to do the damage, as 1.5kms of the 2.5kms average 6.6%. They will look to drop Viviani and Gaviria but it will be a harder job to drop the likes of Cimolai, Vermeersch, Vendrame, Arndt and Kanter, and as we saw on stage 10, Gaviria and Viviani hung in there too. 

I'm really torn with this one, whether it will be a break or not that takes it, but I'm slightly leaning towards a Sagan-led break of around 10-15 guys maybe making it all the way. I think Cavagna will go out and try to win the stage for DQS after the disappointment of losing Evenepoel, and it would be a good way for him to open the legs up and give them a good workout ahead of the TT on Sunday. 

Sagan I think I will have to have as a saver as he's the price he is, I was expecting him to be around 2/1. He can win it from a break but also form the pack should the break not make it. I see Ulissi is fancied after his incredible 4th place today, but that surely took a lot out of him and he might look to save energy for the hilly stages to come where he might be able to put his skills and form to better use. 

Bettiol is also a very short price at just 12/1, but he might be given free reign to go with Carthy's GC hopes gone. Either that, or he could attack late on the lumpy bits. But that's very short. Jan Tratnik is the kind of engine you want for a stage like this and could jump away late on, and he took it really easy today, coming home 36 mins down. Quinten Hermans had a go today with Pasqualon, but couldn't stay with the much better climbers, he might go again tomorrow and this finish would suit him a lot more. 

Enrico Battaglin looks a decent price at 100/1, Bardiani will probably have one or two in the break and he could go well at the finish. He finished 6th in the Montalcino stage won by Schmid, I think this finish is a lot easier and he could be involved in the finish of this one. 

Astana really have been awful in this Giro and Vlasov had another day to forget today. They might look to get a few guys in the break, and the likes of LL Sanchez and Fabio Felline could be the ones for them tomorrow. Felline hasn't been going bad this season and his 4th in the opening stage of the ToTA and his 4th in the Tirreno stage 5 behind MVDP, Pog and WVA were two great results on similar sorts of courses. 

And I think I'll leave it at that, and watch in play. A few break plays and Sagan as a saver and see how it goes.  

Recommendations:

1pt win on Peter Sagan at 7/1 with Betfair

0.5pts e/w on Fabio Felline at 40/1

0.5pts e/w on Remi Cavagna at 20/1

0.25pts e/w on Enrico Battaglin at 100/1

0.25pts e/w on Jan Tratnik at 33/1 

Matchbets

Felline to beat Bettiol - 3pts at 5/6

Vendrame to beat Oldani - 2pts at 8/11