 |
| My poor Ribble suffering this weekend in the Irish like weather of the Sussex Downs |
A fascinating weekend of
racing at the Giro with a huge amount of disappointment for Irish cycling fans
with the retirement of Dan Martin to a broken collar bone. Dan’s had a great amount of success over the
last couple of seasons and seems to have consistently built his form and his Palmares
too. Success at
last year’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Volta a Catalunya with a 2nd at
Fleche-Wallone recently combined with support from a very strong Garmin team (comprising
previous Giro winner Ryder Hesjedal) meant this could be
the year Dan made everyone aware of his Grand tour potential. Such a shame for Dan especially with the
recent crash out in the 2014 L-B-L when in a winning position on the final
bend, now to suffer misfortune in Ireland…..well best wishes to you Dan. I hope the surgery today goes well.
May the luck
of the panda be with you!!
Another Irishman Nico
Roche is still in with a great chance of a good GC placing/ win in the Giro.
Deignan from team sky is also showing signs of being a quality rider too so
hopefully we’re going into a period of further success for Irish cycling over
the next few years.
I did wonder if by moving
to Tinkoff-Saxo team whether Roche was making the best move- he’d obviously had
limited success previously with Ag2R with good
additions to his palmares in La Vuelta and great results in the shorter stage races
of Paris-Nice. I assumed he’d be
over-shadowed by Contador and Kreuziger, so I’m chuffed he’s got the backing to
show what he’s capable of this Giro and hopefully other stage races too.
As for the overall result
in the Giro, I think you’d be crazy to bet against Nairo Quintana, seemingly in
a rich vein of form and with a strong support team based around a core group of
climbers. I really think the stronger climbing ability of Team Movistar will
give Nairo the advantage over Evans, Uran-Uran and Basso who have teams
comprising of sprinters and rouleurs too. I think Quintana will shine on the final TT
which looks to be a real uphill test. However I do have a feeling the Dario Cataldo
of Team Sky has something in his pocket; indeed I got him at 150-1….. each way!
Although Kittel has won
the first 2 sprint stages I think he’s could be susceptible to losing the overall
points jersey to Elia Viviani, who similarly to Sagan, can pick up points at a
number of different stages in the race, not just the big bunch sprints.
Anyway here’s to a great
Giro now they’ve battled the infamous Irish weather let’s hope it hot’s up
further on the road to Trieste!
p.s Big congratulations to
Marianne Vos – another great win this weekend.
Further proof she is the best cyclist in the world at the moment!
No comments:
Post a Comment