Giro 2020 - Stage 1: Monreale – Palermo 15 km ITT *Spoilers*
blazing_saddles
Posts: 21,534
Stage 1: Monreale – Palermo 15 km ITT
Saturday, October 3rd, 12:15 BST.
The Giro d'Italia kicks off on Sicily with an ITT of 15 kilometres. Expect high speeds, as the route runs mostly downhill on long and straight roads.
Although the route runs mainly downhill, the riders tackle a climb to the Cathedral of Monreale, (GPM4, 1.1 km at 5.6%), which serves as the first categorized climb of the race and feature a cobbled section at the top.
The first time check is located near the cathedral before the riders plunge down a descent of 8 kilometres into Palermo. The first 3 km are a flat-out descent which only features two hairpins, and it is followed by 6 km of descending false flat on a completely straight road, all the way to the heart of Palermo and the second intermediate checkpoint. The second time check is located on the Via Roma.
The last 2,700 m run straight along Via della Libertà, all the way to the finish.
Final kilometres
The final kilometres run flat all the way to the finish line, which sits on 7 m wide tarmac.
Favourites 1st stage 2020 Giro d’Italia
*** Filippo Ganna, Michael Matthews, Rohan Dennis
** Geraint Thomas, Victor Campenaerts, Edoardo Affini
* Jan Tratnik, Alex Dowsett, Chad Haga, Mikkel Bjerg, Tony Martin
And what of the other British favourite for the overall? Well.......
Simon Yates: ‘The Giro d’Italia prologue is the worst time trial I could ever imagine’
Monreale
Monreale has a very important historical peculiarity: it is a city, nowadays with 40,000 inhabitants, built around the immense and wonderful Norman Cathedral, built in 1174 by the king Guglielmo II. Furthermore, since 2015 Monreale is declared a “UNESCO World Heritage Site”, and it is part of the Arab-Norman route (that includes the Arab-Norman monuments of Palermo and the Cathedrals of Cefalù and Monreale).
The most traditional and characteristic activities of Monreale are the arts of mosaic and ceramics.
Monreale excels for its vineyards, orchards, olive groves and lush forests. Very famous is also the production of the wines: Insolia, Grillo, Catarratto, Nero d’Avola, Perricone, and the Extra Virgin Olive Oil DOP Val di Mazara.
S-COOKIES: in the same ovens where the bread is baked, the same “S” shaped biscuits and oblong biscuits filled with quince jam and candied cedar, brushed with glazed sugar invented by the nuns of San Castrenze are produced.
Another very delicious typical product is the “sfincione”, mixed with ancient sicilian flours and seasoned with typical Cacio Cavallo cheese, tomato and onion.
LE SUSINE : The Sanacore and Ariddu plums of Core sweet, whose dry flesh with an intense taste are preserved in thin paper braid by skilled growers, enter full-fledged slow food presidia. Both varieties are very delicate and together with citrus fruits they are na of the local delicacies.
Palermo
Palermo is the capital of the autonomous region of Sicily. The population of Palermo urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 855,285.
The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old.
Palermo is Sicily’s cultural, economic and tourism capital.
The Teatro Massimo ("Greatest Theatre") was opened in 1897. It is the biggest in Italy (8,000 m2, 86,000 sq ft), and one of the largest of Europe (the third after the Paris Opera and the Vienna State Opera), renowned for its perfect acoustics. Enrico Caruso sang in a performance of La Gioconda during the opening season, returning for Rigoletto at the very end of his career.
Food
Caponata, Pasta with sardines, Anelletti Al Forno
Sarde A Beccafico, Babbaluci, Panelle, Spleen sandwich, Sfincione, Arancine, Cannoli, Cassata
Saturday, October 3rd, 12:15 BST.
The Giro d'Italia kicks off on Sicily with an ITT of 15 kilometres. Expect high speeds, as the route runs mostly downhill on long and straight roads.
Although the route runs mainly downhill, the riders tackle a climb to the Cathedral of Monreale, (GPM4, 1.1 km at 5.6%), which serves as the first categorized climb of the race and feature a cobbled section at the top.
The first time check is located near the cathedral before the riders plunge down a descent of 8 kilometres into Palermo. The first 3 km are a flat-out descent which only features two hairpins, and it is followed by 6 km of descending false flat on a completely straight road, all the way to the heart of Palermo and the second intermediate checkpoint. The second time check is located on the Via Roma.
The last 2,700 m run straight along Via della Libertà, all the way to the finish.
Final kilometres
The final kilometres run flat all the way to the finish line, which sits on 7 m wide tarmac.
Favourites 1st stage 2020 Giro d’Italia
*** Filippo Ganna, Michael Matthews, Rohan Dennis
** Geraint Thomas, Victor Campenaerts, Edoardo Affini
* Jan Tratnik, Alex Dowsett, Chad Haga, Mikkel Bjerg, Tony Martin
And what of the other British favourite for the overall? Well.......
Simon Yates: ‘The Giro d’Italia prologue is the worst time trial I could ever imagine’
Monreale
Monreale has a very important historical peculiarity: it is a city, nowadays with 40,000 inhabitants, built around the immense and wonderful Norman Cathedral, built in 1174 by the king Guglielmo II. Furthermore, since 2015 Monreale is declared a “UNESCO World Heritage Site”, and it is part of the Arab-Norman route (that includes the Arab-Norman monuments of Palermo and the Cathedrals of Cefalù and Monreale).
The most traditional and characteristic activities of Monreale are the arts of mosaic and ceramics.
Monreale excels for its vineyards, orchards, olive groves and lush forests. Very famous is also the production of the wines: Insolia, Grillo, Catarratto, Nero d’Avola, Perricone, and the Extra Virgin Olive Oil DOP Val di Mazara.
S-COOKIES: in the same ovens where the bread is baked, the same “S” shaped biscuits and oblong biscuits filled with quince jam and candied cedar, brushed with glazed sugar invented by the nuns of San Castrenze are produced.
Another very delicious typical product is the “sfincione”, mixed with ancient sicilian flours and seasoned with typical Cacio Cavallo cheese, tomato and onion.
LE SUSINE : The Sanacore and Ariddu plums of Core sweet, whose dry flesh with an intense taste are preserved in thin paper braid by skilled growers, enter full-fledged slow food presidia. Both varieties are very delicate and together with citrus fruits they are na of the local delicacies.
Palermo
Palermo is the capital of the autonomous region of Sicily. The population of Palermo urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 855,285.
The city is noted for its history, culture, architecture and gastronomy, playing an important role throughout much of its existence; it is over 2,700 years old.
Palermo is Sicily’s cultural, economic and tourism capital.
The Teatro Massimo ("Greatest Theatre") was opened in 1897. It is the biggest in Italy (8,000 m2, 86,000 sq ft), and one of the largest of Europe (the third after the Paris Opera and the Vienna State Opera), renowned for its perfect acoustics. Enrico Caruso sang in a performance of La Gioconda during the opening season, returning for Rigoletto at the very end of his career.
Food
Caponata, Pasta with sardines, Anelletti Al Forno
Sarde A Beccafico, Babbaluci, Panelle, Spleen sandwich, Sfincione, Arancine, Cannoli, Cassata
"Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.
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So the first climb (KOM) of the race is the very first 1.1km of the entire Giro.
Going to be hilarious watching some of the 'lesser lights' absolutely burying themselves in c.2min uphill sprint out the startgate, in a bid for the KOM jersey on day 1. Makes a change from getting in a 3 man break and pipping someone up a 3% 2km cat 4 I suppose.
13:15 Alex Dowsett (Israel Start-Up Nation) - first starter
13:18 Victor Campenaerts (NTT)
14.00 Jan Tratnik (Bahrain McLaren)
14:14 Rohan Dennis (INEOS Grenadiers)
14:34 Mikkel Bjerg (UAE Emirates)
14.35 Jos van Emden (Jumbo-Visma)
14:36 Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers)
14:58 Filippo Ganna (INEOS Grenadiers)
15:33 Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb)
16:08 Edoardo Affini (Mitchelton-Scott)
13:16 Pello Bilbao (Bahrain McLaren)
13:52 Jonathan Castroviejo (INEOS Grenadiers)
13:59 Matthias Brändle (Israel Start-Up Nation)
14:39 Thomas De Gendt (Lotto Soudal)
15:26 Maciej Bodnar (BORA-hansgrohe)
15:41 Tony Martin (Jumbo-Visma)
16:02 Brandon McNulty (UAE Emirates)
16:09 Benjamin Thomas (Groupama-FDJ)
13:27 João Almeida (Deceuninck-Quick-Step)
13:56 Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott)
14:25 Ilnur Zakarin (CCC)
14:36 Geraint Thomas (INEOS Grenadiers)
15:12 Aleksandr Vlasov (Astana)
15:55 Wilco Kelderman (Team Sunweb)
15:56 Jakob Fuglsang (Astana)
15:57 Vincenzo Nibali (Trek-Segafredo)
16:03 Steven Kruijswijk (Jumbo-Visma)
16:10 Rafal Majka (BORA- hansgrohe) - last starter.
NB. British Eurosport are not due to start their tv coverage until Simon Yates and Geraint Thomas have finished their time trials.
Not everybody has the player or GCN.
All the Sicily stages are being shown in full on the player, but Sunday's stage coverage on tv is quite short.
24 hour forecast:
Also, did anybody else pick up on the horrific phrase "spleen sandwich" in the food section?
Will be welsh commentary, I presume, but riders' names are the same...
Antwan Tolhoek, Sam Oomen, Tom Dumoulin, Thymen Arensman, Remco Evenepoel, Benoît Cosnefroy, Tom Pidcock, Mark Cavendish, Romain Bardet
They got some seriously good TT specialists with Ganna and Dennis. Thomas is pretty strong too in TT (despite people saying he is censored and not good enough).
I think the wind forecast at the time had something to do with it, but the forecast has now changed.
Looks like there isn't much of a marginal gain whatever time a rider sets off.
Interviews with Geraint and others were in English!
I'll be tuning in at 1pm.....
30 mins highlights at 9.30pm, may have english subtitles if you dig into the settings.
Not sure what point you are trying to make.
2018.
He had Sky/Ineos's last two GT stage wins until Kwiato won stage 18 of this year's Tour.
Anyhow, I removed quote to avoid any confusion.
Bits of this are terrifying.
Dowsett has had a brown shorts moment too.