STAGE 2 Recap 2013 Giro d'Italia

Well, I didn't post this before stage 2 started, so you'll just have to take my word that I had the first two stages' winners picked correctly. Of course both were won by the favorites: Cavendish in the stage 1 sprint, and Team Sky in the stage 2 team time trial. In fact I came in 2nd place out of 397 in one of my fantasy games on stage one. Despite also picking Sky for today's TTT, the rest of my top 5 were all wrong.

There would be no stopping Bradley Wiggins' well-drilled Team Sky squad in a team trial of this profile.  Movistar's team time trial work has paid off as they showed with a strong second place finish, giving their young talent, Beñat Intxausti a comfortable position to take through the first week. Astana was really no surprise in third, and that should satisfy their leader, Nibali, but I think today's great work by Vini Fantini and Lampre, finishing 5th and 6th respectively--both just 22 seconds off Sky's winning time--were the slight surprises. That should please their team leaders, Santambrogio and Scarponi, who, like everyone else, were doing their best just to limit their losses to Wiggins. Note: I don't think Vini Fantini really expect Garzelli to be a legitimate GC contender this year. He's like a hundred years old. Mauro Santambrogio on the other hand has shown significant improvement and has shown some great results in the hills recently.

Joaquin Rodriguez is of course not present this year to enjoy the respectable 4th place showing his Katusha team put in. It will be interesting to see what, if anything, Giampaolo Caruso can do for the Russian squad. I had the 7th, 8th, and 9th place teams (Garmin, Blanco, and Orica Green Edge) finishing in the top 5, but the six teams who finished 4th through 9th are all within 10 seconds of each other. 

The losers today are many, though their losses for the most part, are not catastrophic. Here's a brief list of the GC favorites and where they now stand behind Wiggins after today's TTT:

Intxausti and Capecchi (MOV) are at + :09 to Wiggins;
Nibali and Aru (AST) + :14
Giampaolo Caruso (KAT) + :19
Santambroggio and Garzelli (VIN) +:22
Scarponi and Niemiec (LAM) +:22
Hesjedal and Danielson (GRS) +:25
Gesink and Kruijswijk (BLA) +:28
Damiano Caruso (CAN) +:35
Cadel Evans and Taylor Phinney (BMC) +:37
Kiserlovski and Machado (RLT) +:43
Pozzovivo and Betancur (ALM) +:50
Sammy Sanchez and Egoi Martinez (EUS) +1:01
Anyone who thought JJ Cobo was a legitimate contender: he lost 2:48 today, so there goes that.

You can see for yourself who the big losers were today.  While last year's champ, Hesjedal, hoped for better from his team today, Cadel Evans and especially Sammy Sanchez took more of a beating. Euskatel has never been much for the TT, but that is going to be a tough minute for the Spaniard to recover. Personally, I'm not giving Evans much of a shot at this Giro, because I believe he's looking at this race more as a training period toward his bigger goal of riding a strong Tour de France. He will probably go for a stage win, and if his GC position tumbles early, maybe two.

Full Results

Teams

		Result
1	Sky Procycling	0:22:05
2	Movistar Team	0:00:09
3	Astana Pro Team	0:00:14
4	Katusha	0:00:19
5	Vini Fantini-Selle Italia	0:00:22
6	Lampre-Merida
7	Garmin-Sharp	0:00:25
8	Blanco Pro Cycling Team	0:00:28
9	Orica-GreenEdge
10	Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team	0:00:34
11	Cannondale Pro Cycling	0:00:35
12	BMC Racing Team	0:00:37
13	Bardiani Valvole-CSF Inox	0:00:41
14	RadioShack Leopard	0:00:43
15	Team Saxo-Tinkoff
16	Androni Giocattoli	0:00:46
17	Omega Pharma-Quick-Step Cycling Team	0:00:48
18	Ag2R La Mondiale	0:00:50
19	FDJ	0:00:55
20	Colombia	0:00:56
21	Lotto Belisol	0:01:00
22	Euskaltel-Euskadi	0:01:01
23	Team Argos-Shimano	0:01:13