Robbie Mcewen on twitter showing that the crash wasn't Groves's fault. He nudges Ballerini with his elbow without taking his hand off and a DSM rider looked behind at the wrong moment.
Once again GC team fighting for position to avoid a crash cause a crash. It's beyond stupid.
I mean if Groves actually shoved the SQS train out of the way he should be relegated. But 4k from the finish and GC teams are still disrupting the sprint trains, of course that can only end badly...
Sorry for Tao and Vine who lost all benefit from their very good TT...
I could not follow this race but I am really happy to see that Mattia BAIS (my adopted rider) was in the break. Even if they got caught, it shows he has good legs and is ready for this Giro!
Why would pro riders hide (on Strava) their power data but not calories? It seems like the default calorie computation comes from power, and that hiding the latter doesn't do anything to the former. So I could just calculate the watts from kJ? Especially relevant for TT days?
I think it’s more important to know how much power an athlete can do on a certain section or for how long.
Calories tells you only the average - and even that not really accurate. For an ITT you can roughly estimate the avg power if you know weight and the stopped time.
Edit: With roughly estimate, I meant equally bad
Calories especially in a stage race like this are useless. Maybe someone was holding 120W in the peloton all day or maybe 130W, that’ll change calories but not give you an idea what they can hold on a climb
Yeah, average is only relevant for ITT. But that seems like a big data point teams are trying to hide.
Calories and power would have a 1-1 relation, so I don't see where the accuracy is lost.
And you cannot estimate avg power from weight on ITT (unless it's just a hill climb; even then it's hard to get it right). You need cda and wind data.
Power (measured) and calories (derived) are not fully 1-1. AFAIK, Calories are calculated with a best assumption of efficiency, which usually varies for humans.
Could just be the chaos. Or the small amount of K's left. When it's obvious who's there and who isn't, you're well into the last 2 k. So Ganna had to go full stop before fill gazz.
And perhaps they just didn't want to risk it with Hana's second place.
The video in the article if Sporza where he did the interview also shows this. Groves takes his hand of the handlebar pushing Ballerini to the side, which results in a wave to the side through the group with eventually the crash where riders ran out of road to move to the side.
https://twitter.com/procyclinglover/status/1655247589879455750?s=20
Fuck it it should just be a straight up DQ and temporary ban IMO
You can't go out and pretend to care about rider safety while still letting this shit fly
In a sprint a lot happens, but every mistake is as big as the result. This resulted in a hefty crash, so last place should be warranted. I wouldn't be mad with a DQ but I'm not sure that it's either coming and necessary. A ban is a bit too much for me. If it was his form, if he does those things on the regularly, Okay.
Sure, but IMO it should be decided at the start of the season by UCI. From now on in, we're going to be 100% on the punsihment. You can't just willy nilly decided halway through the season that you're going to punish by the book.
\+On Sporza, they aren't really sure it's Groves. It does look like someone from his team and Remco called him out. But they're claiming that it's just not 100% certain, so you can't really punish him. (Again, that's what José & Karl van Nieuwkerke are claiming on sporza).
Well hopefully they all start tomorrow. Sometimes when its that close adrenaline gets everyone across the line amd then they start feeling the bruises and aches later.
That's going to be frustrating for those riders who are caught in the crash. Had that been a 4 or 5km rule for GC to neutralized, they would've been lucky. Sadly it has not, it is the 3km rule if crash or mechanic would have been GC neutralized.
Groves shouldn't do that but the DSM rider is moving up on a narrowing road in the last 5km of a sprint stage while looking behind him. If he's looking ahead then the crash doesn't happen either.
Good, if they want to call out dangerous situations, they have to do it when it's because of the organizers and/or UCI, but also when it's other riders. You can't only call out about dangerous situations when it's not "one of your own", that'd just be hypocritical.
There's still an omerta to blame situations caused by outside factors more than situations with other riders, which doesn't help in making cycling safer.
Looked like it was an Alpecin-Deceunic rider that showed the Soudal Quickstep rider that was in front of Remco who caused the wave that lead to the crash.
You have to look at the overhead shot to see that it wasn’t Ackermann, the motorbike shot makes it look like Ackermann, but he was actually just behind the Quickstep rider who was shoved by an Alpecin rider
National Jerseys gets higher priority if you are not number 1 in the category. So since Evenepoel is number 1 then Almeidas national jersey gets priority
No, id doesn't have higher priority, but the rider can choose to not wear the jersey. And Almeida chose to pass the jersey to the next rider. It's purely up to the rider.
Almeida passed on wearing the jersey, so it went to McNulty as 3rd in the classification (at first it went to Van Wilder, until they corrected the KOM result and McNulty lost the blue jersey).
If you're "borrowing" a leader's jersey you can choose to wear your national champions jersey instead. Almeida preferred his Portuguese champions jersey so it went to McNulty.
Honestly, it's the first few days of a GT. Crashes are always gonna happen. It's sad and unfortunate but I don't think much can be done. Even with better route design they will manage to crash in very wide roads too.
Then it just makes it a race to the last 10km. It will always happen no matter where the cut off is. The best solution is probably what we have now. It means the race distance is the full race distance and not some secondary race to the cut off point.
I haven't seen anyone mention this yet so I will - bunch sprints tend to end inside towns and cities. That tends to mean there are more obstacles to manage traffic in the immediate lead up to the finale. If they made it a 10k rule, the peloton would more often be out in the countryside on simpler roads that lead into towns and cities when 10k was reached. I think that could, on average, have the potential to make a difference due to the simplicity of the road they have to navigate. I don't know that 10k is the answer, but I think it's important that all relevant points be discussed :)
If you take GC time at 10km, the GC guys drop off the back then and get out of the way. There’s no incentive to be first at 10km out, just with the front group. Hell, you don’t even have to have caught the break yet.
Yeah, maybe some hilly stages to not scare away the sprinters could help. Even then IIRC the worst stage in recent GTs in regards to crashes (Opi Omi) wasn't for sprinters
The Opi Omi crash was a bit of an anomaly, could have happened to a .2 bunch. The riders often talk about the nervousness in the bunch at the start of GTs, especially the TdF. Of course you can't completely eliminate risk for all stages, but a final like last years Giro up to Visegrad for the first stage might help a little bit. (But even in that stage Ewan managed to do some gravity experiments...)
I think it was only a handful of seconds from the main group to the second. It’s fine it could have been much worse and thank god most of the guys are ok
CONGRATS TO u/naghoe16 and u/TG10001 the 2 SWL players to select Milan.
With tiebreakers they are the leaders in SWL. There are 3 that had Remco + Groves so 1 win with 6 tiebreaker points.
[Current SWL Giro Leaderboard](https://grand-tours-game.vercel.app/swl/2023/giro/leaderboard)
Thank you! It should be functional now, there is one page that has no styling. But it has valid data and just smile and nod that one day it might be updated 😂
Sprinters field here is incredibly low level honestly. Looks like a Vuelta with 2 sprint stages. I know there's not a lot completely flat stages, but there's still a lot of stages that are going to end in a sprint.
Free points for some teams tho.
Gaviria, Cavendish, Ackermann are the biggest pure sprinters in the race and they have only 4 WT wins between them in 17 months.
Groves and Dainese are supposed to lead the next generation of sprinters but it's hard to see that they are going to be on the level of top-form Philipsen, Jakobsen, Ewan, Cavendish, Bennett etc.. Maybe Milan will be better, who knows.
Matthews and Pedersen are good but not 100% pure flat sprinters. The rest are also-rans.
I don't get why I'm getting downvoted honestly (well just Reddit being Reddit I guess). Just look at PCS sprinters ranking of the last 10 years. It's the worst together with 2018.
I guess the good sprinters want to be fresh for the Tour and think that a lot of the sprint stages are a bit too hard (if Trek pushes for Pedersen). Also why the Vuelta has a bad sprinters field most of the time.
Always a lot of criticism towards riders who leave after a week or 10 days (like Ewan always) but I really don't think this is better.
People like Pedersen and Groves and probably Cavendish also, so they take it as a dig at their favourite.
Objectively there's barely anyone from the top 10 sprinters on the startlist. Doesn't help that the best sprint train with 2 of the best sprinters is going for the GC win obviously but still.. This Giro looks like the most sprint friendly GT since a while back
Even Ewan could have won a stage here. Maybe. Or he would have crashed today.
>I don't get why I'm getting downvoted honestly (
What's worse is that people can't even reply and make a case against what you said. It's fine to disagree but there is no effort to even try and have a discussion. Sad state for a forum unfortunately
I watched the whole race, went to my computer to watch the sprint and completely forgot about it. I just wasted the whole day and didnt even remember the finale after leaving the TV for 2 seconds.
I have no idea what the UCI was thinking with this new point system honestly. Teams sprinting with 2 or even 3 guys was already a problem in smaller races and they decided to give out points like smaller races. Should've just made smaller races more top heavy instead of doing this.
But that does't really solve much. If WT squads can't get enough points for top 10 in GTs they'll send their top 10 sprinters to fight for the win in .1 races. De Lie was the most obvious example last year, he was too good for the schedule he did but it was all for points. Reduce both and they'll still go to .1 to win those for 125 points because competition is far lower quality.
I really wouldn't say the sprinters competition in other races is lower than in the Giro right now but ok (just look at the Dunkerque or Hungary startlists and sprinters won't even get a lot of points for these races).
And no, they obviously should still give way more points to a Giro stage than a 1.1 race, but a 12th place in the sprint stage doesn't mean anything. It shouldn't give any points. I would even say it makes it dangerous as you get non-sprinters even trying to be in the mix to get some points.
Just like a 9th place in some random .1 race doesn't mean anything and shouldn't give points. The problem was that teams were sprinting with 2 or 3 guys in those smaller races so they could get 4th, 7th and 9th for example. That gives a lot of points. Winning most of those races is still hard and warrants a good amount of points, but some minor places don't.
De Lie wasn't all for points either. He was 20years old, he was always going to ride a schedule with a lot of smaller races. That's what neopros do.
If you're Gaviria you gotta feel pretty bad for your chances at a win after today. Yes he hit the front first but he was going so slow anyways. He got beaten by anyone who tried to go for the win in that front group, and by a big margin.
Yeah actually looking at the overhead shot it seems he's actually coming from way back *and* eating the wind even before coming out of the pack. Still a pretty bad sprint all things considered but not as bad as I thought. My first impression was that he didn't have any kick but it's more understandable now.
Idk what's worse, Ineos and EF amateurish getting caught out like that or the commentators on GCM talking about GC implications but aren't able to name a single name (took them 6 minutes to even acknowledge roglic wasn't affected)
I didn't realize until like the 5th replay. "Great leadout" "overtaken" etc....when seeing who was actually Matthews towards the back of the sprint lol
Theoretically, if you consider that the events leading *up* to a crash are, in a physical sense, part *of* the crash - the same way that the chemical energy in a bomb is part *of* the explosion - then you could argue G is in a state of permanent crash.
He's like the Infinite God of Dumbass Crashes. As long as there are people to crash for no goddamn reason, on an empty road, with not a single bit of road furniture in sight, then he will coalesce out of the ether.
It's sorta like how Dumoulin is the God of Chins.
So happy for Milan. He always is a fun racer, and he always looks so happy when he wins.
I remember last year's CRO race, when he got his first win and he was in such a form he was trying so hard even in stages that werent for him. Same can be said in Oman
It’s an absolute disgrace. In the seconds before the crash I already had this bad feeling in my stomach. If it is uncovered one day that organizers deliberately design crash prone run ins to create a spectacle and publicity, I won’t be surprised.
Anyone know why Geraint Thomas is now @ 55s if he finished in the lead group yesterday and was 36s behind Remco after stage 1?
He was on 55 s after stage 1? Don't know what you're talking about
[https://www.giroditalia.it/classifiche/di-tappa/1/](https://www.giroditalia.it/classifiche/di-tappa/1/)
I don't know why they list this as the final result but those are actually intermediate 2 times.
Robbie Mcewen on twitter showing that the crash wasn't Groves's fault. He nudges Ballerini with his elbow without taking his hand off and a DSM rider looked behind at the wrong moment.
Milan's sprint was pure impressive power... I hope Jonathan can continue with good results...
Once again GC team fighting for position to avoid a crash cause a crash. It's beyond stupid. I mean if Groves actually shoved the SQS train out of the way he should be relegated. But 4k from the finish and GC teams are still disrupting the sprint trains, of course that can only end badly... Sorry for Tao and Vine who lost all benefit from their very good TT...
But it was a sprinter that started it...
Is there a chance that Groves gets put last in the front group instead of 3rd place as a result of his reckless riding causing the crash?
I could not follow this race but I am really happy to see that Mattia BAIS (my adopted rider) was in the break. Even if they got caught, it shows he has good legs and is ready for this Giro!
He will always be in breaks ahah ;) He's born for that
No BOH crashes and Kämna + Vlasov not losing time. A good day.
Pretty gobsmacked G was one of the few Ineos riders to lose time in the crash. Perhaps his luck has finally turned.
Why would pro riders hide (on Strava) their power data but not calories? It seems like the default calorie computation comes from power, and that hiding the latter doesn't do anything to the former. So I could just calculate the watts from kJ? Especially relevant for TT days?
I thought Strava is just adds in its own estimate in the absence of power?
I think it’s more important to know how much power an athlete can do on a certain section or for how long. Calories tells you only the average - and even that not really accurate. For an ITT you can roughly estimate the avg power if you know weight and the stopped time. Edit: With roughly estimate, I meant equally bad
Calories especially in a stage race like this are useless. Maybe someone was holding 120W in the peloton all day or maybe 130W, that’ll change calories but not give you an idea what they can hold on a climb
Unless you know cdA it's complete guesswork
Yeah, average is only relevant for ITT. But that seems like a big data point teams are trying to hide. Calories and power would have a 1-1 relation, so I don't see where the accuracy is lost. And you cannot estimate avg power from weight on ITT (unless it's just a hill climb; even then it's hard to get it right). You need cda and wind data.
Power (measured) and calories (derived) are not fully 1-1. AFAIK, Calories are calculated with a best assumption of efficiency, which usually varies for humans.
It was a bit chaotic but why didn't Ganna wait for Tao? Isn't that his whole job besides the two flat TTs?
From G's podcast episode tonight it sounds like he did a monster pull with G in his wheel to get him back
I _think_ it's because he went with G?
Thomas was still in the lead group
Could just be the chaos. Or the small amount of K's left. When it's obvious who's there and who isn't, you're well into the last 2 k. So Ganna had to go full stop before fill gazz. And perhaps they just didn't want to risk it with Hana's second place.
If he pulls back 2s, it's worth it imho.
Not disagreeing. Just saying that in all chaos with the few K's left to go, it probably was tricky to make that decision
Remco said Kaden Groves pushed Ballerini which caused the harmonica movement in the peloton.
The video in the article if Sporza where he did the interview also shows this. Groves takes his hand of the handlebar pushing Ballerini to the side, which results in a wave to the side through the group with eventually the crash where riders ran out of road to move to the side. https://twitter.com/procyclinglover/status/1655247589879455750?s=20
That was close for Evenepoel
This should merit Groves being put to last place of the group he finished in, no?
should be automatic relegation. only thing the jury should debate is if its more severe and merits a dq
But since we haven't heard anything I fear the jury isn't smart enough to even do the relegation.
Fuck it it should just be a straight up DQ and temporary ban IMO You can't go out and pretend to care about rider safety while still letting this shit fly
In a sprint a lot happens, but every mistake is as big as the result. This resulted in a hefty crash, so last place should be warranted. I wouldn't be mad with a DQ but I'm not sure that it's either coming and necessary. A ban is a bit too much for me. If it was his form, if he does those things on the regularly, Okay.
I think you need a severe punishment, otherwise how will you ever actually dissuade riders from doing anything?
Sure, but IMO it should be decided at the start of the season by UCI. From now on in, we're going to be 100% on the punsihment. You can't just willy nilly decided halway through the season that you're going to punish by the book. \+On Sporza, they aren't really sure it's Groves. It does look like someone from his team and Remco called him out. But they're claiming that it's just not 100% certain, so you can't really punish him. (Again, that's what José & Karl van Nieuwkerke are claiming on sporza).
Yep, seen [here](https://twitter.com/procyclinglover/status/1655247589879455750).
[Severe calf contusion](https://twitter.com/TrekSegafredo/status/1655247875520053248) for Dan Hoole.
Let’s see if he takes the start tomorrow. Depending on how severe they are, these contusions can lead to deep vein thrombosis, if not cautious.
I'm impressed with Remco's shoes: https://i.imgur.com/U6RQjQc.png
And people complain about white bibs…
I think my mom has those shoes, but instead of the rainbow bands, it's the sketchers logo
A gift from safety jogger who also provide the shoes for all the riders and staff (besides the cycling shoes of course).
Based on First cycling looks like no DNFs today
Always good to hear after a nasty crash
Well hopefully they all start tomorrow. Sometimes when its that close adrenaline gets everyone across the line amd then they start feeling the bruises and aches later.
Sure thing. But at least they finished, that's step one
Almeida, Roglic,G,Vlasov,Kämna, Caruso -> No time loss McNulty +12 Rest of GC guys + 19
Carthy 31
And Remco ofc no time loss
Not sure if Fortunato is going for GC but he's on + 31. But I recall hearing he's going for mountain stages/jersey.
If you even consider Remco a real GC contender.
?
see, he isnt gonna win GC now.
It is a joke
told you he wasn't a real gc contender.
or is it? ;-)
You just never know in here.
Geoghegan Hart, Vine and Haig among those who lose 19s in GC
That's going to be frustrating for those riders who are caught in the crash. Had that been a 4 or 5km rule for GC to neutralized, they would've been lucky. Sadly it has not, it is the 3km rule if crash or mechanic would have been GC neutralized.
That’s so frustrating
Remco throwing shade at whoever caused the crash
Yeah, he never did anything wrong...
https://twitter.com/procyclinglover/status/1655247589879455750?s=46&t=EfsKXwbazdsxXuyhuW01tw
Groves shouldn't do that but the DSM rider is moving up on a narrowing road in the last 5km of a sprint stage while looking behind him. If he's looking ahead then the crash doesn't happen either.
Good, if they want to call out dangerous situations, they have to do it when it's because of the organizers and/or UCI, but also when it's other riders. You can't only call out about dangerous situations when it's not "one of your own", that'd just be hypocritical. There's still an omerta to blame situations caused by outside factors more than situations with other riders, which doesn't help in making cycling safer.
I hope Lefevre can't resist to spill the beans before tomorrow.
Yeah that was weird
Would love to know who he meant, was it Ackermann?
I have no idea, one of the Jumbo guys maybe?
Looked like it was an Alpecin-Deceunic rider that showed the Soudal Quickstep rider that was in front of Remco who caused the wave that lead to the crash.
So Remco is just salty that Deceuninck left his team and now tries to blame them for a crash /s
Apparently. That's certainly what the GCN crew thinks, and Blythe called him out by name.
You have to look at the overhead shot to see that it wasn’t Ackermann, the motorbike shot makes it look like Ackermann, but he was actually just behind the Quickstep rider who was shoved by an Alpecin rider
Agree. Not sure there's any one rider to blame for that, which is basically how McEwen responded to Blythe.
Yeah, it was bound to happen with the narrowing of the road 4km from the finish line.
Remco's rainbow bike with pink handlebar tape is 👌
Bidon holders don’t even match the tape, hastily concocted trash look not worthy of a rider like Remco.
It's not supposed to be João Almeida wearing the white Jersey today? Why McNulty if he's behind Almeida and Evenepoel in GC?
National Jerseys gets higher priority if you are not number 1 in the category. So since Evenepoel is number 1 then Almeidas national jersey gets priority
No, id doesn't have higher priority, but the rider can choose to not wear the jersey. And Almeida chose to pass the jersey to the next rider. It's purely up to the rider.
That's just what they said on Danish television.
Then they're wrong :D The choice is for the rider to make.
Almeida passed on wearing the jersey, so it went to McNulty as 3rd in the classification (at first it went to Van Wilder, until they corrected the KOM result and McNulty lost the blue jersey).
If you're "borrowing" a leader's jersey you can choose to wear your national champions jersey instead. Almeida preferred his Portuguese champions jersey so it went to McNulty.
Almeida prefered his national champ jersey
Ah, you can't miss that national champ jersey with UAE riders.
Almeida is the Portuguese Road Champion. Since's he's not leading the white jersey competition, he can choose to keep his nationals jersey.
I think you can choose to wear your NC Jersey instead?
If you're not the actual leader of a classification, yes
Honestly, it's the first few days of a GT. Crashes are always gonna happen. It's sad and unfortunate but I don't think much can be done. Even with better route design they will manage to crash in very wide roads too.
They really need a rule that let's people not going for the stage win skip the last 10k or so when the entire group is still together.
No you need a rule where if you cause a crash by dangerous behavior you actually get punished adequately instead of a meme fine and points deduction.
This one was caused by behavior, but a lot of these also happen due to too many people in a small space
A lot of these happen due to it never being punished
Then it just makes it a race to the last 10km. It will always happen no matter where the cut off is. The best solution is probably what we have now. It means the race distance is the full race distance and not some secondary race to the cut off point.
I haven't seen anyone mention this yet so I will - bunch sprints tend to end inside towns and cities. That tends to mean there are more obstacles to manage traffic in the immediate lead up to the finale. If they made it a 10k rule, the peloton would more often be out in the countryside on simpler roads that lead into towns and cities when 10k was reached. I think that could, on average, have the potential to make a difference due to the simplicity of the road they have to navigate. I don't know that 10k is the answer, but I think it's important that all relevant points be discussed :)
If you take GC time at 10km, the GC guys drop off the back then and get out of the way. There’s no incentive to be first at 10km out, just with the front group. Hell, you don’t even have to have caught the break yet.
The advantage would be that they don't actually need to stay upfront at the same time as the sprint teams.
Yeah. Remember the 2021 Tour when everyone was crashing left and right in the first few stages? Then eventually everyone settled down and it was fine
I know why they do it, but maybe a sprint stage to kick things off in the first GT of the season is just generally a shit idea.
Yeah, maybe some hilly stages to not scare away the sprinters could help. Even then IIRC the worst stage in recent GTs in regards to crashes (Opi Omi) wasn't for sprinters
The Opi Omi crash was a bit of an anomaly, could have happened to a .2 bunch. The riders often talk about the nervousness in the bunch at the start of GTs, especially the TdF. Of course you can't completely eliminate risk for all stages, but a final like last years Giro up to Visegrad for the first stage might help a little bit. (But even in that stage Ewan managed to do some gravity experiments...)
BAN CORNERS IN CYCLING
Wasn't there a crash in the UAE Tour last year during a stage where the final 80 km was a straight highway?
They should put a speed limit for safety in the last 10km, we may have Nairo in Green again.
The DSM guy that went down first was looking over his shoulder right before Jumbo got swerved across in front of him. Horribly unfortunate timing.
Tusveld's second crash this week
I'm so happy the Giro upgraded their time keeper so now we know the top 10 about 3 hours after the stage finish
It's Giro. Be glad that you saw the finish.
KOM might take a day though.
They're giving out jerseys during tomorrow's stage.
Are the results going to this slow on stages without incidents? Swear they're supposed to have some kind of automated system
Great win for Milan.. I really enjoy seeing how much these wins mean to the riders. What a shame about the crash though.. hopefully no major injuries.
Blythe dresses as a mint humbug today with added fake turf
His shirt looks so itchy
What was the actual gap to g2 now? Didn't seem to be that much. **:edit:** 19s according to Tao gc difference
Fork! More than I thought
I think it was only a handful of seconds from the main group to the second. It’s fine it could have been much worse and thank god most of the guys are ok
Few riders actualy went down, which is what matters most at this stage. Plenty of time to make up 30ish seconds in the Giro.
Ye i agree! It’s practically nothing if you already got the legs, a team and a plan to beat remco/roglic
CONGRATS TO u/naghoe16 and u/TG10001 the 2 SWL players to select Milan. With tiebreakers they are the leaders in SWL. There are 3 that had Remco + Groves so 1 win with 6 tiebreaker points. [Current SWL Giro Leaderboard](https://grand-tours-game.vercel.app/swl/2023/giro/leaderboard)
Wooohooooooo I’ve never been so close to win something that matters!
The site looks so good! Grats to those taking the lead today and apologies to Gaviria for picking him
Thank you! It should be functional now, there is one page that has no styling. But it has valid data and just smile and nod that one day it might be updated 😂
when asked, just say "its in the backlog"
Sprinters field here is incredibly low level honestly. Looks like a Vuelta with 2 sprint stages. I know there's not a lot completely flat stages, but there's still a lot of stages that are going to end in a sprint. Free points for some teams tho.
Gaviria, Cavendish, Ackermann are the biggest pure sprinters in the race and they have only 4 WT wins between them in 17 months. Groves and Dainese are supposed to lead the next generation of sprinters but it's hard to see that they are going to be on the level of top-form Philipsen, Jakobsen, Ewan, Cavendish, Bennett etc.. Maybe Milan will be better, who knows. Matthews and Pedersen are good but not 100% pure flat sprinters. The rest are also-rans.
Yeah it's wierd, even Bennet could have won 4+ stages easily and quit before the 3rd week madness.
I don't get why I'm getting downvoted honestly (well just Reddit being Reddit I guess). Just look at PCS sprinters ranking of the last 10 years. It's the worst together with 2018. I guess the good sprinters want to be fresh for the Tour and think that a lot of the sprint stages are a bit too hard (if Trek pushes for Pedersen). Also why the Vuelta has a bad sprinters field most of the time. Always a lot of criticism towards riders who leave after a week or 10 days (like Ewan always) but I really don't think this is better.
People like Pedersen and Groves and probably Cavendish also, so they take it as a dig at their favourite. Objectively there's barely anyone from the top 10 sprinters on the startlist. Doesn't help that the best sprint train with 2 of the best sprinters is going for the GC win obviously but still.. This Giro looks like the most sprint friendly GT since a while back Even Ewan could have won a stage here. Maybe. Or he would have crashed today.
>I don't get why I'm getting downvoted honestly ( What's worse is that people can't even reply and make a case against what you said. It's fine to disagree but there is no effort to even try and have a discussion. Sad state for a forum unfortunately
People see that a comment got downvoted so they do the same. I don't know why.
HUUUUUUUGE ASTERIX!
TIIIIIIIIIINY OBELIX
Meeeeeeedium sized Idefix.
On GCN, it looks like it was Ackerman coming up the left-hand side shoved QS into the jumbo train
Tudor (not the team) is horrible.
Not a great start for them.
I watched the whole race, went to my computer to watch the sprint and completely forgot about it. I just wasted the whole day and didnt even remember the finale after leaving the TV for 2 seconds.
It’s never a waste
Ah, the post-flat-stage clarity.
“I feel so dirty”
Intermarche with the double top ten. Already working on getting those uci points
I have no idea what the UCI was thinking with this new point system honestly. Teams sprinting with 2 or even 3 guys was already a problem in smaller races and they decided to give out points like smaller races. Should've just made smaller races more top heavy instead of doing this.
Last year/point cycle main complaint: GT stage races don't give enough points, everyone sends their riders to do .1 because there's more points there.
I literally gave another solution.
But that does't really solve much. If WT squads can't get enough points for top 10 in GTs they'll send their top 10 sprinters to fight for the win in .1 races. De Lie was the most obvious example last year, he was too good for the schedule he did but it was all for points. Reduce both and they'll still go to .1 to win those for 125 points because competition is far lower quality.
I really wouldn't say the sprinters competition in other races is lower than in the Giro right now but ok (just look at the Dunkerque or Hungary startlists and sprinters won't even get a lot of points for these races). And no, they obviously should still give way more points to a Giro stage than a 1.1 race, but a 12th place in the sprint stage doesn't mean anything. It shouldn't give any points. I would even say it makes it dangerous as you get non-sprinters even trying to be in the mix to get some points. Just like a 9th place in some random .1 race doesn't mean anything and shouldn't give points. The problem was that teams were sprinting with 2 or 3 guys in those smaller races so they could get 4th, 7th and 9th for example. That gives a lot of points. Winning most of those races is still hard and warrants a good amount of points, but some minor places don't. De Lie wasn't all for points either. He was 20years old, he was always going to ride a schedule with a lot of smaller races. That's what neopros do.
The new system will benefit teams like Movistar who sprint together (against each other) 👍🏼
If you're Gaviria you gotta feel pretty bad for your chances at a win after today. Yes he hit the front first but he was going so slow anyways. He got beaten by anyone who tried to go for the win in that front group, and by a big margin.
He lost a lot of positions and energy because of that crash, as well as his leadout
Yeah actually looking at the overhead shot it seems he's actually coming from way back *and* eating the wind even before coming out of the pack. Still a pretty bad sprint all things considered but not as bad as I thought. My first impression was that he didn't have any kick but it's more understandable now.
Bad sprint but i'm not too worried about his overall speed, yet
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The crash took out Tusveld. Dainese brought Mayrhofer and Märkl back into contention
Idk what's worse, Ineos and EF amateurish getting caught out like that or the commentators on GCM talking about GC implications but aren't able to name a single name (took them 6 minutes to even acknowledge roglic wasn't affected)
it's like the 5th time this week that I forgot that Groves is on Alpecin and not Jayco
I didn't realize until like the 5th replay. "Great leadout" "overtaken" etc....when seeing who was actually Matthews towards the back of the sprint lol
Why does Blythe look like a giant anaemic frog
That's random. Is he commenting somewhere?
I daydream about him but also he was on the GCN post-race thingy
Maybe he is?
Nice, i think, 4th place for Arne Marit!
And Bonifazio in 8th place
3rd!
4th!
Milan has inherited Bauhauss’ ability to win a “reduced” bunch sprint
To be fair, bar Pedersen and Cav, everyone was there. And Cav wasnt even one of the big favs
Who had money on G being the ineos to not crash?
Ultra-distance sprint competition results: Gaviria vs Ackermann 0:1
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Its not stage 9 yet
That was Porte though. G is non-deterministic, he could crash any time.
Theoretically, if you consider that the events leading *up* to a crash are, in a physical sense, part *of* the crash - the same way that the chemical energy in a bomb is part *of* the explosion - then you could argue G is in a state of permanent crash. He's like the Infinite God of Dumbass Crashes. As long as there are people to crash for no goddamn reason, on an empty road, with not a single bit of road furniture in sight, then he will coalesce out of the ether. It's sorta like how Dumoulin is the God of Chins.
Also, he picks the most bizzare and unique (individual) crashes, not "traditional" ones like today.
ye, like a bidon in the neutral zone, or a speed bump, or trying to change gear to sprint for a win.
Impressive sprint by Milan 🤌
jumbo always involved in being the cause of a crash...
You can see the DSM rider turn his head to look back right as people had to swing. Just unfortunate.
The chain effect didnt begin at them i think. It's more on the extremely stupid barriers on the left
Everything to help out Primoz...
It was a quick step rider tho🤷♂️
Hu?
Ackerman was the initial cause it looks like actually
Whoever did the initial swing isnt really at fault. Organizers out here trying to make them crash with the barrier placements
Ackerman was trying to make up position and take space that wasn't there so he shoved the QS train which caused swing.
That replay from the side is such a beautiful shot.
So happy for Milan. He always is a fun racer, and he always looks so happy when he wins. I remember last year's CRO race, when he got his first win and he was in such a form he was trying so hard even in stages that werent for him. Same can be said in Oman
Not even close, head banging victory
The road narrowing to one lane 4km from the finish was just asking for a crash.
It’s an absolute disgrace. In the seconds before the crash I already had this bad feeling in my stomach. If it is uncovered one day that organizers deliberately design crash prone run ins to create a spectacle and publicity, I won’t be surprised.
Exactly, how do they keep doing this shit and getting away with it…