Details: Published on Thursday, 24 April 2014 00:13

Giro d'Italia Preview

Ireland and Italy!

Friday 9th May to Sunday June 1st, 3449.9km

The first grand Tour of the year. The first chance we have to really see what sort of form Nairo Quintana, the favourite is in. The first time the Giro has started in Ireland and the first time that there will be three Irishmen starting a Grand Tour since the heady days of 1992 when Roche, Kelly and Earley competed in the Tour de France. There's a lot to look forward to, with a challenging and exciting course.

Merckx-giro

This is a legendary race. A race littered with legendary names like Bartali, Coppi, Grimondi, Merckx, Hinault, Roche, Fignon, Bugno, Indurain, Pantani. More recently we have had Nibali make his mark in 2013, Hesjedal in 2012 and Scarponi in 2011 (after Contador was stripped of his title).

This year's race is full of anniversaries and memories - it starts in Ireland as an honour to 1987 winner Stephen Roche, who went on to win the treble of the Giro, Tour de France and World Championships in the same season. It is primarily though to commemerate the 10th anniversary of the passing of Marco Pantani with three climbs being passed in his honour. The route will visit Pantani’s favourite training climb up the Monte Carpegna and will also feature summit finishes on two climbs where he posted two of his most famous victories, the Oropa and Montecampione.

This is a brilliant, brutal race. A race that is steeped in history and tradition - this is the 97th running of the race, which was first run in 1909 but skipped a few years because of the wars. The race was suggested by the editor of La Gazetta Della Sport to his cycling editor and the owner, as he wanted to replicate the Tour de France with an Italian version. He saw it as a way to promote and increase sales of the newspaper. They were up for it, but the problem was lack of funds. It resulted in a scramble around Italy to raise donations, but they managed to raise enough to fund the operating costs, even securing 3000 Lira from their rival newspaper Corriere.

The first race may only have been 8 stages, but the 127 riders that started faced an incredible 2448Kms in just those eight stages, an average of 306kms per stage! No wonder only 49 riders finished it! This year's race is of course very different with 21 stages stretched over 3 weeks, covering 3,449.9kms, or an average stage distance of a paltry 164.3kms in comparison! It is a very balanced and varied route this year, with three time trials in total, including the Team Time Trial in Belfast, 8 sprinter stages and 9 mountain stages with summit finishes.

It certainly looks a route suited to the climbers and with the amount of hard summit finishes on the route it isn't hard to see why Nairo Quintana is the odds-on favourite.

The Route

It looks like a really great route this year. The stages in Ireland look interesting and challenging and should be surrounded by feverish excitement. A team time trial followed by a road stage around northern Ireland and then a stage down to Dublin will start the Giro with a bang.

The race then takes a day's break to cross back to Italy and begins its clockwise circuit around Italy on Tuesday the 13th. Starting in Giovinazzo at the south-eastern tip of Italy, they get a nice easy introduction back to Italy with a short 112km kermesse in Bari. That's it for easy days though as the route heads north through the Appenines and then does a loop all around the top of Italy from west to east. They face three time trials in total, 8 stages for the sprinters (although some have got quite tough finishes), 4 medium mountain stages with summit finishes and 5 high mountain finishes with summit finishes.

The weather has often affected stages in the Giro, especially when the roads go up in to the very high mountains around 2000m high. There are a number of high finishes this year which could make for spectacular and very significant stages, so hopefully the weather will hold off and they will be run as intended. Stage 16 is significant in that respect as this exact stage was in last years parcours but was cancelled due to the heavy snows in the Dolomites. Last year also saw two stages shortened because of the weather.

There are three time trials in total in the race - the first, a Team Time Trial over 21.7kms in Belfast, out a dead straight road to Stormont castle and back again will see the first rider of the winning team take the first Maglia Rosa of the race. The second TT is a 46.4km run from Barbaresco to Barola, which climbs for the first 12kms, giving the climbers a bit more of a chance of limiting losses to the TT specialists. The final time trial is a brutal climb up to the summit of Crespano Del Grappa, 26.2kms, of which nearly 20km are climbing. Parts hig 14% and the last 6km average nearly 9%. If the GC is pretty tight going in to this stage, it could be blown apart by the finish.

There are plenty of mountain stages though as well for the goats to get stuck in to and it is easy to see why Nairo Quintana, Joaquin Rodriguez, Uran and Pozzovivo are well up in the betting. The weekend of the 24th and 25th of May are going to play a crucial part in the outcome of this race and should make for spectacular weekend viewing. Stage 14 and 15 are also big stages for the Giro organisers, as they honour the life and death of Marco Pantani with the climbs of the Oropa and the Montecampione. The penultimate stage up the Zoncolan will be one last decider, with the 20%+ slopes slowing most to nearly a crawl.

Giro-route

Contenders and Favourites

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