Giro Stage 10 - Spoiler thread

No_Ta_Doctor

TailWindHome wrote:

Here's a question. If he/Sky expected to lose time, why did Uran attack?

Probably to take the edge of Nibali's legs before they hit the 20%, and break one of his domestiques. That would still leave Wiggins needing to ride his own race on the last section, but very possibly gapped less when the steepest ramp arrived.

We can talk about how Nibs was still fresh enough and Wiggins couldn't handle the gradient, but what would Wiggins have looked like if Nibali had arrived at the steep section just a touch fresher? We could easily be looking at a couple of minutes dropped, not 48 seconds.

Playing the long game, they've now got 2 riders at 2 minutes, so next time Uran attacks he will have to be taken seriously.

DeadCalm

Sky at least gave it a go. Kudos to them for that. No doubt it didn't work out for them as they'd hoped in their wildest dreams but they at least got something out of the stage in Uran's win and improvement in terms of GC. They'd have been slated if they'd just sat on Nibali's wheel all day and Wiggins would probably have lost the time anyway.

It's certainly not all over yet but Nibali is now a strong favourite. He s riding better than he's ever done. I wish it was with Canondale rather than Astana though.

For me, the rider of the Giro (and probably 2013) so far is Carlos Betancur. Absolutely irrepressible and although I'm loving watching him light up the Giro, part of me wishes he'd been saved for the Tour which has a more favourable parcours.

alihisgreat

DeadCalm wrote:

Sky at least gave it a go. Kudos to them for that. No doubt it didn't work out for them as they'd hoped in their wildest dreams but they at least got something out of the stage in Uran's win and improvement in terms of GC. They'd have been slated if they'd just sat on Nibali's wheel all day and Wiggins would probably have lost the time anyway.

It's certainly not all over yet but Nibali is now a strong favourite. He s riding better than he's ever done. I wish it was with Canondale rather than Astana though.

For me, the rider of the Giro (and probably 2013) so far is Carlos Betancur. Absolutely irrepressible and although I'm loving watching him light up the Giro, part of me wishes he'd been saved for the Tour which has a more favourable parcours.

In what way does the Tour have a more favourable parcours?

Betancur looks more than happy on the super steep gradients that you don't get in the tour..

DeadCalm

ALIHISGREAT wrote:

DeadCalm wrote:

Sky at least gave it a go. Kudos to them for that. No doubt it didn't work out for them as they'd hoped in their wildest dreams but they at least got something out of the stage in Uran's win and improvement in terms of GC. They'd have been slated if they'd just sat on Nibali's wheel all day and Wiggins would probably have lost the time anyway.

It's certainly not all over yet but Nibali is now a strong favourite. He s riding better than he's ever done. I wish it was with Canondale rather than Astana though.

For me, the rider of the Giro (and probably 2013) so far is Carlos Betancur. Absolutely irrepressible and although I'm loving watching him light up the Giro, part of me wishes he'd been saved for the Tour which has a more favourable parcours.

In what way does the Tour have a more favourable parcours?

Betancur looks more than happy on the super steep gradients that you don't get in the tour..

Less TT miles. Whilst I'm a big fan, he isn't a great in the time trial.

Calpol

I have to say I am finding this race quite fascinating. So much has happened and we aren't even halfway through. Wiggins quite clearly hasn't been on it so far and I wonder if it could be suggested that he was under raced coming into the Giro. Last year his confidence entering TdF was very high after his fairly imperious form in Paris-Nice, Romandie and the Dauphine. As a rider who seems to have some quite extreme moods those wins must have made him feel pretty invincible. This season however he has opted to train more than race and his most noteable outing ended in failure albeit not from a winning position.

Nibali on the other hand has had a great season leading up to the Giro and carries not only form but confidence into a race that very much suits his abilities. He has then built on this by producing a brilliant TT and a tactically astute race so far. Right down to his desire today to take bonus seconds, you can tell he is very focused.

Wiggins by his own admission has allowed his mind to wander at several times which clearly is not conducive to winning a Grand Tour. I wonder if there is a degree of complacency within Sky or if Wiggins simply knows he is underdone coming into this race, hence his comments regarding the Tour. You do wonder just how important the Giro is to Wiggins - surely if it was then there would have been no pre race TdF talk.

For me it always looked like Nibali's to lose. Without Rodriguez, Contador, de Gendt then the race looked a little closed in terms of likely winners. It also doesn't look as if there is another Hesjedal about to emerge this year. I wouldn't write Wiggin off completely as we have already seen that anyone can be subject to a fall, crash or mechanical. However it appears that Nibali is far more resilient than anyone else in the field at present.

secretsqirrel

frenchfighter wrote:

calvjones wrote:

hello tiralongo? Does he only work when Bertie needs help?

Tiralongo is ill I think. Or else he would have his race face strapped and huge calves pumping at the front of the peloton, his jersey unzippe, his chain swaying and his glasses perched on top of his head.

Hoping Astana allows him some recovery time so he is up for it next week (same for Aru). Kangert has put a lot of effort in so far, which is going to be difficult to sustain. Kessiakoff and Zeits may also take over duties later in the race as well.

Astana would be mad to attempt a 9 man domination train like Sky. They would be spent before the 2nd week was out.

As FF has rightly said the Giro is at it's best when fought out by individuals. Nibs v Evans would make for a great contest.

confused@BR

Great stage today. Wiggins had the sort of day he would expect when not in perfect health. Astana had a very hard day helping Nibali have a very hard day. Rigoberto Uran Uran had the day he fully deserved. Cadel Evans had the sort of day he must have dreamed of during 2012 when everything went wrong for him.

Three week races last three weeks. Too many people are writing the results up with so much still in play.

mfin

I know Wiggins is a brit and all that, but people don't half go on about him, all this trying to assess this and that about how he is doing, criticising, conjecture on illness, blah blah blah.... its all boll**ks really. The guy hit the steep bit and lost about 30 seconds. Move on. (I did notice about 20 teams worth of other riders on the road, perhaps we could spread the guff out between them a bit more).

A lot of this stuff spouted reminds me of how football fans talk about football... don't think there are many vacancies at Sky for armchair DS's

rick_chasey

2 horse race now, as we could have predicted.

Still too many derailleur problems in the peloton.


Did Gesink crash going uphill??


Enjoyable stage. Nibs was very impressive.

Pross

People are discussing the form of one of pre race favourites (the pre race favourite). They'd be doing the same if Contador was in the race and had had similar time loss.

mfin

Pross wrote:

People are discussing the form of one of pre race favourites (the pre race favourite). They'd be doing the same if Contador was in the race and had had similar time loss.

Yeah but its so in depth when there's no depth there but what you can watch in 10 minutes. Takes Bradley himself bugger all words to sum it up. Perhaps its just me, I find all the conjecture and that to be verbal diarrhoea half the time. The only thing relevant at all is the guy lost 30 secs odd, and perhaps mainly on the steepest bit. Discussion over really. There's no revelation here.

I thought cycling fans weren't like footfall fans, but perhaps they are.

Dont get me wrong though, I absolutely love watching as much cycling as I can get time for. Spoke to a mate who saw today's stage today earlier too, spent less time saying to each other stuff about it than its taken to write this.

Perhaps Im just moaning though, bad day at the orifice and all that.

Pross

Fair point. I think much of it is down to people making out his career is over after losing two minutes and that Froome / Uran / Henao / Porte should now usurp him in the pecking order which in turn brings out people commenting on why that is plainly b***ocks.

mfin

Pross wrote:

Fair point. I think much of it is down to people making out his career is over after losing two minutes and that Froome / Uran / Henao / Porte should now usurp him in the pecking order which in turn brings out people commenting on why that is plainly b***ocks.

Yep. ...and if one thing is true its that people discussing Bradley in terms of his position in Sky seems to result in an incredible amounts of crap being 'discussed' by these armchair DS's, as well as people who don't like various things about Sky. Its really 'football' level stuff Im afraid.

During a stage, it doesn't even stay to 'say what you see' to quote Roy off Catchphrase, it turns into rubbish, where people get all excited one second that something's happened and next second they're proved wrong 'such and such has blown', oh no, he hasn't... such and such is looking bad, when he's peddling along with the best of them and by the time they've typed it he's back up at the front.

Oh well. Nothing will change, never does

PeteinSQ

People were discussing the stage as it was being played out and as you no doubt know it isn't always 100% clear what is happening when they get high into the mountains and the only footage is being shot from a helicopter.

You can complain that people are discussing this in the same way that football fans discuss cycling - but then if people didn't discuss it in this way what exactly would they discuss on a forum dedicated to discussing pro cycling?? I can't help but feel that perhaps you're in the wrong place if you think people shouldn't talk about the race.

Sure it's all conjecture but it would be pretty dull following any sport if we didn't speculate on stuff.

mfin

PeteinSQ wrote:

People were discussing the stage as it was being played out and as you no doubt know it isn't always 100% clear what is happening when they get high into the mountains and the only footage is being shot from a helicopter.

You can complain that people are discussing this in the same way that football fans discuss cycling - but then if people didn't discuss it in this way what exactly would they discuss on a forum dedicated to discussing pro cycling?? I can't help but feel that perhaps you're in the wrong place if you think people shouldn't talk about the race.

Sure it's all conjecture but it would be pretty dull following any sport if we didn't speculate on stuff.

Fair enough, its the degree of it that surprises me... but the people getting things wrong that they see that 30 seconds later is proved wrong is just daft, its like crap commentary.

Squaggles

sorry but cycling is popular now mfin
I blame Bradley Wiggins :roll:

itboffin

11 speed FAIL and cuddles does he always sound like he's just dropped a G or is there something else he wants to tell the world?

Brad has he's made up his mind to bin this GT and feck Froome over and try for the double tour win? I think he has.

danlikesbikes

Some pics from the day

danlikesbikes

Few more pics

danlikesbikes

Last lot

PeteinSQ

mfin wrote:

Fair enough, its the degree of it that surprises me... but the people getting things wrong that they see that 30 seconds later is proved wrong is just daft, its like crap commentary.

The crap commentary thing is something I blame Twitter for. Everyone wants to microblog everything.

mroli

Squaggles wrote:

I think Ryder might struggle to win the Giro again this year now , I know I'm going out on a limb there

Ha! And I don't think De Gendt will podium this year either...!

joelsim

Well my money is on Santambrogio, Scarponi and Betancur.

No really, about £3 E/W on each of them.

Hopefully Nibs and Cuddles will both do a Ryder.

knedlicky

No tA Doctor wrote:

So Wiggins at 2.05, Uran at 2.04. Both are still close enough to have a shot, though Nibali looked very strong and so did Evans. They're well placed for a few more moves like today's.

Wiggins only got into trouble on the very steepest ramps and he pulled back a fair bit when it flattened out. I'd suggest that today's result was pretty much in line with what they would have been expecting, though obviously hoping for a bit more.

Too early to write Wiggins off completely, or Uran, but they'll be paying close attention to the profiles for the rest of the stages.
Great ride by Uran.

Most of what you write I agree with, just not the bit in ‘bold’. When they came out of the steepest bit, 3.0 km out, Wiggins was 23-25 secs behind the Nibali group, and he came in at 37 secs to Nibali.
Most people seem to think it was the steep slope which did him, but it was also his inability to sufficiently recover quickly enough on the less-steep slope.
He looked to me then he was at his limit, in order to still be a contender tomorrow morning. So at least he showed spunk.
He’s still got very steep slopes ahead (stages 15, 19, 20) but they all go to the finish (give or take 100-200 m), so recovery on a 3 km long still-steepish run-in isn’t required again.

knedlicky

Richmond Racer wrote:

TheBigBean wrote:

Wiggins has another bad day and drops to 4th in a GT with a parcours deliberately set up to attract him to the race.

The only bit of the parcours that was supposed to attract him was that first TT - and as it turned out, the first half of it was actually tailor made for Nibali. Nothing else about this Giro parcours is Wiggins-friendly, and constructed to attract him.

Maybe that was always your opinion, but I doubt it was many others’. Over 75% of the PTP tips are for Wiggins, and every Internet site, magazine and newpaper seemed to favour Wiggins ahead of Nibali (if not as overwhelmingly as the PTP).
And to say the TT was tailor-made for Nibali ignores that the TT midway through the TdF last year wasn’t pan-flat and dead-straight either.

I think attempts were made to make the Giro attractive and friendly for Wiggins and Sky, not just 30% more TT(T) kms than last year but also nearly 10% less climbing than in the two previous editions and the climbing concentrated in fewer stages.

knedlicky

Ed-tron wrote:

Was an enthralling stage. Seems to me Sky will be content, as were in a sort of win-win situation.

The key for this stage was always going to be how Uran and Henao were to be used (aka unleashed), and what effect that would have.
Turns out Uran got away and gained time overall, so will have to be chased next time by Nibali+Astana. Therefore Sky have more leverage on Astana now, and its still early days in the mountains.

Given the very steep kick up and the end of the stage, its almost like today Wiggin's job was to not lose too much time on Nibs. Somewhat accomplished. Meanwhile as we saw a few other GC cracked and lost more.

Bottom line, seems to me that Sky are in a stronger position now.

You are writing after the fact, but I think this was very probably what Sky intended from the start today.

I’d guess their next move will be on the Galibier, it’s a climb suited to typical Sky team dominance and if that doesn’t work there to help Wiggins, they’ll let let Uran go off again.

knedlicky

mroli wrote:

Squaggles wrote:

I think Ryder might struggle to win the Giro again this year now , I know I'm going out on a limb there

Ha! And I don't think De Gendt will podium this year either...!

Cassani at RAI doesn’t think Scarponi will podium either.

No_Ta_Doctor

knedlicky wrote:

No tA Doctor wrote:

So Wiggins at 2.05, Uran at 2.04. Both are still close enough to have a shot, though Nibali looked very strong and so did Evans. They're well placed for a few more moves like today's.

Wiggins only got into trouble on the very steepest ramps and he pulled back a fair bit when it flattened out. I'd suggest that today's result was pretty much in line with what they would have been expecting, though obviously hoping for a bit more.

Too early to write Wiggins off completely, or Uran, but they'll be paying close attention to the profiles for the rest of the stages.
Great ride by Uran.

Most of what you write I agree with, just not the bit in ‘bold’. When they came out of the steepest bit, 3.0 km out, Wiggins was 23-25 secs behind the Nibali group, and he came in at 37 secs to Nibali.
Most people seem to think it was the steep slope which did him, but it was also his inability to sufficiently recover quickly enough on the less-steep slope.
He looked to me then he was at his limit, in order to still be a contender tomorrow morning. So at least he showed spunk.
He’s still got very steep slopes ahead (stages 15, 19, 20) but they all go to the finish (give or take 100-200 m), so recovery on a 3 km long still-steepish run-in isn’t required again.

Interesting. I didn't have any time checks to go on but thought Wiggins finished solidly, though I guess the sprint finish from Nibali probably took a few more seconds out of him.

milton50

I’d guess their next move will be on the Galibier, it’s a climb suited to typical Sky team dominance and if that doesn’t work there to help Wiggins, they’ll let let Uran go off again.

Agreed. I think they probably did what they could today; weakning the legs of the climbers before the steep gradients to try and limit his losses. It's all academic but I think the Wiggins of 2012 would still have lost time on yesterday's stage.

The Galibier is a climb much more suited to Wiggins and if they can't ride Nibali off their wheel then it's almost impossible to see Wiggins making the time up barring accidents.

If he does go on to lose the Giro, as seems likely, I get the feeling he'll look back on the time lost descending as the main reason why rather than his climbing.

blazing_saddles

Not getting this "Sky is in a better position" theory.
Sounds like another dose of eternal optimism to me.
Before that stage, Wiggins was 90 seconds down and
they had 3 riders within 2 minutes 50 of the lead.
All in a position to threaten.

Now, Wiggins is further back and they only have 2 riders
in a position to threaten.

Given that Henao, previously considered to be potentially the
more dangerous card to play, has pretty much become
a stepping stone, rather than a threat to the GC, I'd conclude
that they lost this round on points.

And yes, there is still a long way to go.