Standings after week 2
General classification:
- Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE)
- Ayuso (🇪🇸 UAE) at 1’13’’
- Tiberi (🇮🇹 Bahrain) at 1’30’’
- Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF) at 1’40’’
- Ciccone (🇮🇹 Lidl-Trek) at 1’41’’
- S. Yates (🇬🇧 Visma) at 1’42’’
- Bernal (🇨🇴 Ineos) at 1’57’’
- McNulty (🇺🇸 UAE) at 1’59’’
- A. Yates (🇬🇧 UAE) at 2’01’’
- Roglitch (🇸🇮 Bora) at 2’25’’
Mountain classification:
- Fortunato (🇮🇹 Astana) 98 pts
- Ayuso (🇪🇸 UAE) 50
- Double (🇬🇧 Jayco) 36
- Tarozzi (🇮🇹 Bardiani) 32
- Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE) 25
Points classification:
- Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) 153 pts
- Tonelli (🇮🇹 Polti) 59
- Kooij (🇳🇱 Visma) 55
- Van Uden (🇳🇱 Picnic) 50
- Van Aert (🇧🇪 Visma) 43
Intermediary sprints:
- Tonellii (🇮🇹 Polti) 59 pts
- Van der Hoorn (🇳🇱 Intermarché) 34
- Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) 31
- De Bondt (🇧🇪 Decathlon) 29
- Tarozzi (🇮🇹 Bardiani) 26
Breakaways:
- Tonellii (🇮🇹 Polti) 368 km
- Van der Hoorn (🇳🇱 Intermarché) 285
- Tarozzi (🇮🇹 Bardiani) 278
Redbull KM:
- Tarozzi (🇮🇹 Bardiani) 30 pts
- Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE) 23
- Tonellii (🇮🇹 Polti) 19
Teams:
- UAE
- Lidl-Trek at 12’15’’
- Visma at 12’49’
- Ineos, Astana & Bahrain at 15-16 mn
Stage 14: Trévise – Gorizia, 195 km (Saturday 24, dep. 12:45-12:55, arr. 17:00-17:30)
Stage for sprinters-punchers (meaning this time “sprinters who can pass small walls”). A few inroads into Slovenia🇸🇮 (the country of cycling since 2018) in the final part of the stage.
Stage with light difficulties, 50 points to the winner.
The ‘3 km’ rule applies for falls/incidents within 5 km from the finish.
Delays: 9% if ≤ 37 km/h; 10% if ≤ 41 km/h; 11% otherwise). Expected average speeds: 43 km/h ⇒ 29’55’‘, 45 km/h ⇒ 28’43’‘, 47 km/h ⇒ 27’17’'.
There was a stop at km 0, for advertisement of the Pinarello factory.
Then a breakaway of a dozen of riders developed. First there was a FDJ, then De Bondt (Decathlon) joined him, then a group of 8 including Van Aert, Asgreen, Cerny and I guess 1 or 2 riders managed to join them a bit later.
Yet this breakaway disbanded / was caught up; and a new breakaway of 2 + 3 riders was formed after 20-25 km, including Asgreen again and another FDJ. That’s the ‘good’ one, apparently.
Why is polti pulling the ayuso/roglic group??
They have their GC guy in the group, Piganzoli (only 17th but that’s relatively important for a small team like this). I thought they had their sprinter too, but I am not sure.
Yeah but you still have to leave it to bora/uae to do the chase. Wasting energy that could be used later
Used when?
Dunno. Breakaway in later stages… get your TV time later in the race, not pulling 2 teams with more to lose and motivation to pull… Either way, seems like a waste of energy for no gain
Maybe i play too much pro cycling manager trying to conserve the green energy bar
Yeah… well, it is going to become harder to get in breakaways, from now on, so I am not sure they can join anyway. However, the first quarter/third of these mountain stages will still often be relatively flat and host 1 or 2 intermediate sprints that can interest Polti, so they should indeed try to break away. Yesterday, a couple of their riders just worked a few miles (altogether, the crash was about 22 km from the finish) and Monday is a rest day, it shouldn’t have serious consequences on the future of the team.
During the Tour of Abruzzi, I had noticed that the Polti team liked to pull in the last 10 miles of the race when they had a numerous presence ahead, instead of letting UAE work. Yet in the final walls, none of their riders were in top-10… So it was a bit weird already, especially as it happened the same way (pulling when UAE could have done it + failing in the last km).
Definitely the good one! Big surprise today, as Asgreen (🇩🇰 EF) was never caught up by the peloton and wins the stage!
Another of the 4 members of the breakaway (the 5th one Meintjes (🇿🇦 Intermarché) chose to drop early from the breakaway – or his director chose for him –: if they had known…), Mirco Maestri (🇮🇹 Polti) was caught near the finish, managed to stay in the first group and sprint to finish 6th!
The breakaway never benefited of a decent gap. 2 minutes top, generally around 1’30’'.
Nobody in the peloton did anything in the main climb, but Ineos accelerated 50 m from the top and did the descent full speed, reducing the gap by 30 seconds. Until it started getting wet. Also, until the first Ineos finally noticed he hadn’t been pulling anyone for a while, as his teammate couldn’t follow and burned himself trying to catch up instead of being sheltered…
In the breakaway, the FDJ rider dropped in an uphill sector.
Then the main event happened: a fall upon the cobbles in a small street. I think, but I am not sure at all, that Pedersen (🇩🇰 Lidl-Trek) and another rider fell first, then behind them Ciccone🇮🇹 (Lidl-Trek) and another teammate. As it was narrow, most of the peloton was blocked, while Visma started (or kept on?) pulling at the front. Pedersen didn’t seem badly hit, but didn’t really attempt to chase; Ciccone was more seriously hurt.
This small front group (which included the isolated pink jersey Del Toro (🇲🇽 UAE) and Carapaz (🇪🇨 EF) was pulled by Visma and Alpecin. They spent all their strength pulling for 20 km, and for a long time were only 15-25 seconds from the breakaway, but they never managed to catch up.
S. Yates (🇬🇧 Visma) becomes 2nd of the GC, as Ayuso (🇪🇸 UAE) was delayed by the crash. Second biggest winner is Carapaz who arrived in the same group and passes 4th before Roglitch (🇸🇮 Bora).
Beside Ciconne, Tiberi (🇮🇹 Bahrain ) is the biggest loser, as he finished 1’44’ behind the Del Toro/Yates group.
Biggest winner in my heart is derek gee!! Jumps 4 places into 6th!!! 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦