Rate the Race: Giro d'Italia 2023
mididoctors
Posts: 16,860
in Pro race
Justify .
"If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm
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Some interesting side stories (Healy and Gee in breaks, Mads P & Cort joining the 3-GT stage winners club, Pinot being a dickhead and not getting his stage, Cav lead out by Thomas for the final sprint victory) but the actual jersesy competitions never really lit up and the GC was dull as anything. A close race isn't necessarily exciting, as I've said before. There's tension, but unless you're invested in a particular contender that's not really interesting.
Partly the fault of the race organisers for being so massively back-loaded and with that ridiculous TT to scare everyone away from going all in, partly circumstance due to the abysmal weather and covid decimating the peloton
The final TT did provide some genuine drama and excitement, but coverage & time gaps were so poorly handled it didn't manage to convey much of it
Obviously, I'd have given double points if Geraint had held on for the win....Warning No formatter is installed for the format0 -
There was enough throughout the three weeks to keep me interested, I don't think there were many stages which were sounded so dull I didn't even bother to watch the highlights. Some interesting sub plots like Derek Gee (and Rakim), Pinot pinot-ing himself. GC was good in the last week, and the final TT was undeniably tense and great drama (despite the terrible coverage)0
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I've been harsh and gone 2. Maybe it deserves more for the GC being in the balance up until the final weekend and a Cav win[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0
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If this was a two you'd have to score the Tour Indurain years in negative numbers!DeVlaeminck said:I've been harsh and gone 2. Maybe it deserves more for the GC being in the balance up until the final weekend and a Cav win
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Enjoyed plenty of the stages, Gee, Healy and Pinot were entertaining. Cav winning in Rome the cherry on the top. GC largely forgettable though.
If I'm honest with myself I may of felt different if G had held on or TGH had not crashed out when looking good.0 -
The race was shit. It was saved though by being memorable. There was a lack of administrative resilience by multiple institutions which currently don't work well together to face challenges in the now new normal of erratic weather . Also covid slackness which you can see everywhere ( local super market staff have got remasked) was a own goal . The concatenation of wether and diseases along with negative racing which the parcours set up in teams mind made the GC race a grind . ...
On the plus side there was a very subtle read and bluff going on which in hindsight was very skillful by all the teams . The margins were so small the slightest mistake cost riders dearly . Most of the teams did what they could . Even those that didn't win a stage. The drama at the end TT was good but a bit of a wait . Not exactly froome over the finestre hail mary was it ..
But all said it was still way more emotionally engaging than a lot of giros I have seen god there has been some shit Giros . I like the new faces Healy and Gee of course but Zana is a dark horse .
Seeing Cav and LLS get lead out by G made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up ... Felt like the end of an era movie script .
I think the questions asked by this giro on parcours design . Climate change . Integration of riders union into things also was a positive thing . The course design should be signed off by the CPA before the race starts instead of all this day before horsecrappery.. so riders have agreed ahead the course is fit ...then have objective criteria for extreme weather protocols which the race has to apply.
I think the debate this giro will generate actually raises it's value a bit . .
What do you remember about Garzeli's or Cunego or Dan di Luca giro ? For every 2010 there's a 2004."If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm0 -
Only watched stages 20 & 21
Solid 9 from me“New York has the haircuts, London has the trousers, but Belfast has the reason!0 -
The only thing I expected to miss while in Argentina was the classics (which I have caught up with) and this Giro.
Boy, am I glad I chose Argentina over this drenched dud.
Imo, the only thing good about this Giro was Eurosport's production: benching Kirby for the combination of Hatch, Kelly, lloyd, Blythe and Voight was inspired.
Other than that, only a couple of battles fro the breakaway stood out."Science is a tool for cheaters". An anonymous French PE teacher.1 -
The weather rather ruined the first fortnight. Losing Remco and then Tao rather ruined the GC battle. The stupidly backloaded parcours with novelty donkey track TT put the final nail in the coffin.
I gave it a 5 as viewed as three weeks of one day races, some of them weren’t bad.0 -
LOLtailwindhome said:Only watched stages 20 & 21
Solid 9 from me"If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm0 -
Your right the commentary was a reliefblazing_saddles said:The only thing I expected to miss while in Argentina was the classics (which I have caught up with) and this Giro.
Boy, am I glad I chose Argentina over this drenched dud.
Imo, the only thing good about this Giro was Eurosport's production: benching Kirby for the combination of Hatch, Kelly, lloyd, Blythe and Voight was inspired.
Other than that, only a couple of battles fro the breakaway stood out."If I was a 38 year old man, I definitely wouldn't be riding a bright yellow bike with Hello Kitty disc wheels, put it that way. What we're witnessing here is the world's most high profile mid-life crisis" Afx237vi Mon Jul 20, 2009 2:43 pm0 -
I think that counts as " too small a sample size" and/or an 'outlier'.tailwindhome said:Only watched stages 20 & 21
Solid 9 from meAll Road/ Gravel: tbcWinter: tbcMTB: tbcRoad: tbc"Look at the time...." "he's fallen like an old lady on a cruise ship..."0 -
Mixed bag for me. GC was a damp squib even though it went to the penultimate stage. A 3.
On the other hand most stages had something worth watching and some were good.
A 5 overall.The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
3 from me.
The giro has always been my favourite gt but I actually found myself preferring to watch some of the smaller races which clashed with this, especially after remco quit. Just seemed to to lack the usual excitement.0 -
It wasn't a stone cold classic, that's for sure, but the GC fight was interesting and the tension built beautifully towards the final TT, which was a total cliffhanger.
Away from the GC race, I thought there were loads of interesting stages and some breakout performances from Healy, Gee, Milan, Rubio and Denz amongst others.
I also managed to keep up with the Cycling Podcast which definitely adds to the overall experience of the race. Learnt loads more about Italy - Molise does exist, how mad was Gabriele d'Annunzio - and enjoyed the colour that Friebe and Nygaard provided.
A solid 7 from me.1 -
Can only give it a 2. Remco's Covid positive & TGH's crash greatly reduced the fun of the GC battle by turning it into a 2 horse race. I was personally not really that surprised by Roglic turing GC around on the steep ITT, since I don't really rate Thomas highly on really steep stuff. The fact that it was even close goes to show how substandard Roglic was in terms of his own peak ability.
The weather wrecked large parts of the remaining race with riders just wanting to get stages over with and trying to survive the omnipresent crashes.
The sprinting was also not great, but it's nice that Cav was able to finally win a race since it would be disappointing to see him not win at all in his last season. Not because I'm any type of fanboy, but rather it's nice for legendary champions to go out with a bit more of a bang than a whimper.
Derek Gee was nice and all, but didn't manage to pull it off, so that's more proof of effort than true outstanding ability (bit harsh I know): see Fred Wright. 😛
Milan was really strong, but "only" has 1 win to show for it against a rather lacklustre field of sprinters.PTP Champion 2019, 2022 & 20230 -
I'd have it as bad as any I've seen in 20 years - if the best got a 9 then a 2 for the worst doesn't seem unreasonable.r0bh said:
If this was a two you'd have to score the Tour Indurain years in negative numbers!DeVlaeminck said:I've been harsh and gone 2. Maybe it deserves more for the GC being in the balance up until the final weekend and a Cav win
[Castle Donington Ladies FC - going up in '22]0 -
Almost went for a 5, if it hadn’t been for the last couple of stages it would probably have been a 3. At the end of the second week a 3 would have been generous. Take out the TT and there was about 30 minutes of GC action. The marks are mainly for the breakaways but even that seemed symptomatic of there just not being enough interest to chase them down. Weather didn’t help the racing or the viewing.
Maybe I just watched too much of it.0 -
Shame about the pants weather in first part, and the covid dropouts. Scenery esp Dolomites lovely. My lack of ptp success 'might' 😉 indicate how unpredictable it was. I found it interesting enough to watch on catchup more than the last 10kms of the stages.0
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Outside of the Covid positives, wouldn't swapping the second and third ITT have made the race substantially better? I think it would have.PTP Champion 2019, 2022 & 20232
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I voted 6 (don't know how to make it appear in my post)
I don't think it was better or poorer than many other versions, and some stages were fine and interesting. That 10 stages were won by someone from a break is quite refreshing (one winning twice = Denz), even if it is also a reflection of the passivity of the main contenders (and I don't think Evenepoel and Geoghegan Hart, or Vlasov and Uran, staying in the race would have changed that).
I liked seeing newcomers with potential like tragic hero Gee, also Zana (an italian hope?), how often the same riders seemed to be in the break (Frigo, Skujins, Stojnic, De Marchi, Champion, Gee), and Healy's spirit. And I'm glad Pinot got something in his swansong.
As others have said, the organisers need to put the mountain TT earlier. Or make it less difficult - perhaps two less steep climbs with a short descent between, and no flat at all.0 -
You said in a post in another thread that maybe the race could be improved in some way by bonuses. What exactly would you envisage – bigger time bonuses at the intermediate sprints? What about having some at intermediate climbs too?mididoctors said:I think the debate this giro will generate actually raises it's value a bit .
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I was actually in Italy for the last 8 stages of Garzelli's win, and although the first half of the race seemed not very interesting (I followed it from afar), I quite enjoyed its last week while I was there.mididoctors said:
What do you remember about Garzeli's or Cunego or Dan di Luca giro ? For every 2010 there's a 2004.
Lots of the top Italians of that era were in the race – Pantani, Savoldelli, Simoni, Gotti, Casagrande, a young Di Luca, Frigo, Piepoli and Cipollini (at least at the beginning), as well as the likes of Tonkov and Konyshev. And Casagrande, in Rosa since the 9th stage, was often attacked during the last week, each time he just about parrying enough to keep his lead, although that gradually dropped from about 50 secs to just 20 secs. Eventually he lost the jersey to Garzelli on the 20th stage, a mountain TT.
I believe Garzelli was a popular winner among riders and fans, and when the race was analysed, it was clear Casagrande wasn't the climber he was reputed to be - when he took the jersey, it was almost solely due to his faster descending; during the whole race he never really climbed quicker than any of his opponents.
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Ironically I remember 2004 better than many (maybe even 2010 which is remembered for two stages). Largely due to its legendary crapness.mididoctors said:.
What do you remember about Garzeli's or Cunego or Dan di Luca giro ? For every 2010 there's a 2004.
I think there were about 13 sprint stages. Petacchi won nine of them. Second on GC was Sergei Honchar/Gonchar. Brad McGee made the top ten. There was some beef between Simoni and Cunego.Twitter: @RichN950 -
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rick_chasey said:
You’re just bitter he didn’t give your man’s heroics 5/5RichN95. said:Over the winter when there's not too much to talk about, we're definitely going have to rank post 2010 GTs. Daniel Friebe has completely lost it giving this three glasses. He was dodgy before that.
Maybe , but he rates the 2003 Tour as a five because his man had one day beating Armstrong
Seriously though. Name me a better GT than the 2018 Giro. It was the gold standard (admittedly I was unemployed at the time so watched all of it)Twitter: @RichN950
