STAGE 20 Preview: New Profile and Picks; 2013 Giro d'Italia

Friday morning came with a double-shot of bad news for the Giro d’Italia. First, what was once planned to be among the most challenging stages of the race, stage 19 was canceled due to snow and unsafe road conditions over the entire route.  Organizers had released a modified route plan last night, but the awful weather superceded that modification.

Saturday's “20^th” stage has been vastly altered as well. Race officials have canceled the first three planned climbs, but are still planning on finishing on the Tre Cime Di Lavaredo, at over 2300 meters in elevation. The revised route is 210 kilometers long, with the final 25 kms being the only section salvaged from the original profile. There will be no queen stage at this year's Giro d'Italia.


 Here is the revised stage 20 profile:

Saturday's revised sage 20 profile--for now.

Before the climb to the finish the riders will tackle the category-2 Tre Croci climb. It averages around 7% all the way up its eight-kilometer length.


They will have a few kilometers to recover for the final ascent. It starts steep, ends steep, and has a lot of steep all over it. The first km is over 10%, the final 3k average over 12%, and it has sections that come close to 20%. This mountain is for the pure climbers.

The final 3k are very steep

The cancellation of stage 19 and the modification of stage 20 have all but exhausted the possibility of anyone recovering time against the overall race leader, Astana's Vincenzo Nibali. The Tre Cime will be their last chance.

Only a disastrous day for Nibali could threaten his lead. The Sicilian's closest foe, Cadel Evans, trails by over four minutes. Although hot on Evans' heels--only ten seconds further back--is Team Sky's Rigoberto Uran.

If the Giro win is out of reach, several other competitions within the race are still being hotly contested. Pretty much all of the top ten places could shift around somewhat. Carlos Betancur and Rafal Majka have been wrestling over the white Young Rider’s Jersey, with Betancur currently trailing Majka by a mere two seconds. The Points Jersey, Intermediate Sprint competition and the Combativity competition are all still close races, too.


The loss of all these high mountains means that Stefano Pirazzi has locked up the King of the Mountains competition.  A few climbers still have a shot at the Points Jersey, but if you consider that sprinter-supreme, Mark Cavendish will probably not do too poorly on the final sprint into Brescia, their chances don't look too promising. After losing the jersey to Joaquin Rodriguez by a mere one point last year, it would seem Cavendish will not be denied that jersey this time around.

Giro d'Italia UPDATE: stage 19 canceled; Di Luca EPO positive

 

Friday May 23, 2013

Snow on the high mountain passes yesterday

This morning came with a double-shot of bad news for the Giro d’Italia. First, what was once planned to be among the most challenging stages of the race, stage 19 has been canceled entirely due to snow and unsafe road conditions.  Organizers had released a modified route plan last night, but now the weather has superceded that modification.

Race officials released the following statement:

"Due to adverse weather conditions and, in particular, snow on the stage route in its entirety, stage 19 of the Giro d’Italia, from Ponte di Legno to Val Martello/Martelltal, has been cancelled,"

No word yet on the likelihood of tomorrow’s “20^th” stage being run. As of this writing, they have canceled the first three planned climbs.


 Here is the revised stage 20 profile:

Saturday's revised sage 20 profile--for now.

 While it was looking unlikely that anyone would successfully challenge Vincenzo Nibali’s race lead before the finish on Sunday, several other competitions within the race are still being hotly contested. Carlos Betancur and Rafal Majka have been wrestling over the white Young Rider’s Jersey, with Betancur currently trailing Majka by a mere two seconds.  The Points Jersey, Intermediate Sprint competition and the Combativity competition are all still close races.

 The second piece of bad news is the positive control for EPO returned by Danilo Di Luca.  The Italian was riding very well considering he only had a few racing days in his legs prior to the start of the Giro. He had suggested that good winter training was responsible for his good form. The positive doping result came from an out of competition test conducted on April 29^th,, before the start of the Giro d’Italia.

Danilo Di Luca is going home

With a number of previous suspicious results, as well as a positive for CERA at the 2009 Giro d’Italia—for which he served a 15-month suspension—It is likely that this marks the end of the 37-year-old’s professional cycling career. Di Luca has been provisionally suspended by his team, Vini Fantini-Selle Italia. He had been riding in 26^th place overall in this edition of the Giro, but had collected top-ten finishes on four separate stages, not including the team time trial.

More news will be posted when available.

STAGE 19 Preview: 2013 Giro d'Italia

Distance: 160 km from Ponti di Legno to Val Martello

Date: Friday, May 24

The old route, but the general area of stage 19

RCS have posted the new route and profile for the revised stage 19 in the Dolomites. Snow forced the removal of the high mountain Gavia and Stelvio passes. They were to be the two highest climbs of the race (after the previously 2^nd-highest Galibier climb was shortened for stage 15). Instead, the peloton will climb over two lower passes on the way to the same planned finish climb of the 2059-meter high Val Martello.

The revised stage 19 profile

As much as I was looking forward to it, I will not offer the majestic specs of the canceled Gavia and Stelvio passes, because it will just emphasize the huge difference in the revised course, and sadden me that we won’t get to see the two most impressive stages that really would have defined this tour. Course changes are not an unusual occurrence for the early-season Giro, as the snow obviously continues to threaten the Alps until summer. So, forget about that image of Andy Hampsten plowing through the snow over the Gavia, on his way to the 1988 Giro d’Italia win.

New stage 19 route map

The revised parcours is actually twenty kilometers longer, but involves significantly less climbing. It will still start with a 5-kilometer descent from Ponte di Legno as previously planned, but will head east instead of north. The new route will then take the riders over the 1883-meter (6178 feet) high, category-2 Passo del Tonale, a much less difficult climb than the Gavia.  The official Tonale climb is 8.3 km, has a vertical drop of 626 meters (2053 feet), averages 7.5% gradient, and maxes out at 10%. The Tonale summit comes at km 15.7 as you can see in the profile.

After a long northeasterly descent and a turn north over some rolling terrain, avoiding the Stelvio altogether, the riders will climb over the category one Passo Castrin. It measures 8.4 k—about the same as the Tonale—but averages a steeper 9.5%. It has sections over 10% including a max of 13%, tops out at 1706 meters, and has a more technical descent than its precursor.  Both of these new climbs are light snacks compared to the hearty meals of the canceled peaks.

After the 25-km northward descent from the Hofmahdjoch (the Castrin), the course turns to the southwest. About 60 kilometers from the summit of the Castrin the peloton will start the final climb to the Val Martello summit finish—weather permitting.

The final climb of stage 19

The category-one finish climb is 22.35 kilometers long, averages about 6.4% (this includes about 3 or 4 combined kms of relative flat at the beginning and near the end of the climb), and rises up to 2059 meters (6755 feet). The climb hits stretches over 10% sporadically and maxes out at 14% in spots around 5k and 1k from the summit. The final 1.5k averages about 10%.

The rider’s will have much fresher legs for the finish than they would have had on the “old” course, so expect a large group to make it to the foot of the Martelltal. A breakaway group could surely survive until the final climb, but count on the GC contenders to catch them before the finish, while attacking Nibali wherever possible in the last few kilometers.

Final 3k of the mountaintop finish

With only two stages remaining for the challengers to gain time this stage should still be full of fireworks.

Will the Colombians form an alliance (as Fabio Parra exhorted them to) and attack Nibali as a united front?

How big a factor will the weather be despite the changes to the profile?

With a comfortable 4-minute lead over his nearest rival, will anyone be able to find Vincenzo Nibali’s Acchiles heel? Does he have one?

STAGE 18 Recap and Results, 2013 Giro d'Italia

 

 

Thursday May 23, 2013

Individual Time Trial 20.6 kilometers, climbing

Partly cloudy, 11 c; rain on later starters; cold at the summit;

 A reminder of today’s profile:

Stage 18 ITT Profile

The route overall rises with an average gradient of about 5.4%, so it’s no Alpe d’Huez. You can see from the profile that it starts with a relatively flat kilometer-and-a-half and then climbs for about 7kms on a 6.6% average grade. The course then eases up for almost 5k before rising again to the top for another 7k stretch at the same average gradient as the first section of the climb. Those last kilometers provide the steepest gradients of the route, up to about 10% (at 5k to go), with some of the steeper sections close to the top. This means that the riders will have to gauge their efforts very carefully, and leave enough gas in the tank for the big finish...

STAGE 18 Preview, 2013 Giro d'Italia

 Wednesday May 22 6pm EDT

Giovanni Visconti amazed us all again winning his second stage of this year’s Giro d’Italia in Vicenza on Wednesday. He put on a show defending a slim lead of little more than 20 seconds that he built going over the short climb that topped out with 16 kilometers to go to the finish. His win is the third consecutive for his Movistar team. It is also Visconti’s second win of the year, the first coming just three days earlier on the Col du Galibier.

The peloton was blessed with good weather again for stage 17

[You can read my full race recap in the “Pages” menu to the right.]

The news came on Wednesday morning that a cold front is moving over northern Italy, bringing more snow, rain, and cold temperatures to the region. Giro d’Italia race organizers, Michele Acquarone and RCS Sport are scrambling to plan alternate routes for the upcoming two stages in the Dolomites after Thursday’s climbing time trial stage to Polsa.

Location of stage 18

Stages 19 and 20 were supposed to be the dual Queen stages; resplendent, powerhouse high-mountain stages, with eight big categorized climbs between them, including the 2618-meter high Passo Gavia, the 2758-meter high Stelvio Pass (the cima coppi of the race), and the 2059-meter Val Martello finish on Friday, and the Passos Costalunga (1745 m), San Pellegrino (1918 m), Giau (2236 m), Tre Croci (1805 m), and the Tre Cime di Lavaredo finish on Saturday at 2304 meters. 

Everything above 1500 meters is expected to get snow, so unfortunately it is unlikely that we will see many of those high peaks. They are monitoring the weather and updates are expected.

The stage 18 uphill time trial profile

Thursday brings the 20.6-kilometer climbing time trial from Mori to Polsa. The route overall rises with an average gradient of about 5.4%, so it’s no Alpe d’Huez. You can see from the profile that it starts with a relatively flat kilometer and a half, then climbs for about 7kms on a 6.6% average grade. The course then eases up for almost 5k before rising again to the top for another 7k stretch at the same average gradient as the first section of the climb. Those last kilometers provide the steepest gradients of the route, up to about 10%, with some of the steeper sections close to the top. This means that the riders will have to gauge their efforts very carefully, and leave enough gas in the tank for the big finish.

The final 3 kilometers to the finish

Based on the profile, I think several riders can excel on this stage. The time gaps among the top contenders may not be very big due to the gradients, but a poorly gauged effort could result in a significant time loss to the unprepared. Some of the strong time trialers could perform as well as the powerful climbers on a course like this. I’m thinking of guys like Stef Clement, Wilco Kelderman, Manuele Boaro, and Svein Tuft (although Tuft hasn’t really looked like he’s on his best form).

It still favors guys like Nibali, Evans, Kangert, Scarponi, half of Team Sky, etc. but we may see a surprise name or two in the mix at the top. I'll just throw one more name out there: Juan Manuel Garate of Team Blanco. If he's feeling good and not saving his energy for helping Gesink in the Dolomites, I could see him tearing up this course.