Giro d'Italia
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Last night was a flat stage designed for the sprinters and tonight is the same thing.
All the GC contenders finished safely together last night and pretty likely the same will happen tonight.
George just clicked over 52 hours of riding - more than anyone ahead of him!
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Everyone still together. That won't be the case after tonight's stage.
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Three Category 3 climbs, a Category 2 and then a 1200 metre ascent of Monte Zoncolan. You can click on the little tabs at the top of that Stage Profile to get the profiles of the individual climbs. Monte Zoncalan has a maximum gradient of 22% and extended periods of 15.4% and 13.9%.
Make sure you've got your good legs on, George!
Expectation has to be that Yates will attack Dumoulin on this last climb and in theory he should be able to bury him. Yates and George are both listed at 58kgs, where Dumoulin has to drag his fat 71kg arse up the hill.
If I were George, I'd get on Yates' wheel and try to stick like glue. If he can do that I reckon he'll be in a significantly higher position than 6th tonight. I haven't seen any evidence that George can crack Yates, but there's been a few worrying signs of the converse.
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https://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=12054433
Pretty good article - the only thing I'd disagree with is, "As a result, he sits two minutes and nine seconds down on leader Simon Yates. Any optimistic hopes of overall victory are realistically over – barring a superhuman performance in the mountains – but Bennett can now have genuine ambitions of a top five finish, and could eye the podium if he reaches his best form.
I think that's only true if you discount the possibility that Yates could crack. There are several brutal stages to come, so anything can happen.
If George is a contender to make the podium then he's a contender to win.
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Pretty disappointing day for George - I stayed up to watch the climb up Mt Zoncolan and George disappeared from view very early in the piece.
I thought he'd just cracked, but apparently he had a mechanical problem and had to change bikes. Consequently lost touch with the lead group and lost a couple of minutes - was at least good to see him arrive a couple of minutes after the winner, so that his chance of a top 10 finish stay alive, but his chances of a top five finish have receded a fair way. He's slipped back to eighth and is four minutes behind Yates, 2.5 minutes behind Pozzovivo in third, and nearly a minute behind Froome in fifth.
Yep - Froome and Yates were the winners of the day and Froome won the Stage as well. Yates chased him all the way and the other GC leaders - Pozzovivo, Dumoulin and Thibault lost 20-40 seconds.
So the big losers on the day were George, Carapaz and Dennis. George at least was unlucky and managed to pick up a few seconds on the other two.
Tonight's stage is through the Dolomites, so several climbs and an moderate climb to the finish, but not a brutal mountain top finish. If George conserved a bit of energy compared to the big guns, maybe it's the sort of stage he could win?
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Another somewhat disappointing day for George. I haven't seen it, but it sounds like he attacked early, got reined in by Yates' domestiques and then Yates rode over the top of him and dragged most of the other leading GC riders with him.
Net result is George lost time an everyone ahead of him, except Froome.
Probably not a bad theory to attack for a stage win, though - I thought Yates might have been happy to let George go since he's no longer a major threat to his GC win. However, seems like Yates is waaaay stronger than everyone else and is going to collect a bunch of stage wins as well as the overall title. He's two minutes ahead of Dumoulin and 5.5 minutes ahead of George in eighth. George is a minute behind the guy in fifth, so that's probably still achievable - can't see him doing better than that.
Rest day tonight then the Time Trial tomorrow night. George is talking tough in the article below.
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some good footage here of what happened on Zoncolan.. feel guttted cause he's obviously got the legs - he would have been close to the fastest up there based on the time he lost and where he rolled in.. BUT the amount of guys who throw away races because they won't put on a 5 buck chain catcher...
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@williethewaiter That is bloody disappointing and explains why he lost so much time.
I think you wrote something similar about Andy Schleck and chain catchers a few years ago?
They had said earlier that it might be tricky on Zoncolan if anyone had a mechanical because of the narrowness and having to use motorbikes instead of team cars.
I guess the other guys wouldn't have been burying themselves, but George rode up the mountain 3 minutes faster than Gesink (who was probably trying to provide a bit of support) and more than 5 minutes faster than the AG2R rider (Jaguarei) who is in the shot when he takes off.
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George apparently had more bike issues during the time trial, but no-one is saying quite what. Presumably something that cost more seconds than minutes, since his time wasn't appalling - though he lost more time on people he doubtless hoped to narrow the gap on.
So he's back in tenth, but hopefully due some good luck and has several people ahead of him that he should be able to gain time on with three big mountain stages to come.
Yates is still nearly a minute ahead of Dumoulon and more than three minutes ahead of Pozzovivo in third. He's got it in the bag unless he falls off the mountain.
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A sprinters' stage last night, but now there are three more mountain stages. Some pretty sadistic bastard has drawn up this route.
Tonight's one looks reasonably straightforward - a flat stage followed by a long, but not overly steep climb. Dumoulin hoping the gradient might suit him. Even if it does, I'm betting it will suit Yates even more.
If the leaders all mark one another - they might give George a chance to break away near the end and pick up a stage win - if he's got the legs. Not sure he has, really. He's shown capability to grind up the hill with the others, but when the heat has really gone on - from Yates and others, he's not been able to go with the burst. We'll see.
Still, a battle of attrition. My guess is that if George could finish with Yates on the next three stages he'd probably pick up three or four places.
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Really exciting riding last night, which I woke up and decided I might as well watch.
For once, the peleton let a breakaway get to the final climb 15 minutes ahead and those guys battled it out for the Stage win. But, the real excitement was among the GC riders. The climb wasn't brutally steep and about 20-odd top riders made it well up the mountain together before the attacks started.
A couple got decently away and George put his attack in with about 3km to go. Unfortunately, one of the guys close to him in the GC chased him and dragged the remain bunch up and that was a catalyst for other attacks. Most notably, Dumoulin attacking and taking Froome, Pozzovivo and Yates with him. Only one of Yates' lieutenants had stuck in the group and that guy initially wasn't much use to him, while one of Froome's lieutenants had broken away up the road.
Net result, was that when Froome attacked he had a guy waiting for him and things worked out perfectly. Dumoulin and Pozzovivo followed, but for the first time, Yates cracked and those three jumped up the road to where Froome's man was able to help pace them further away.
In the end, those three took away 28 seconds of Yates' overall lead and now he's only 28 seconds ahead of Dumoulin. George faded a bit as well, finished five seconds behind Yates with a few other straggling GC contenders. He gained no time on anyone significant and lost some more seconds on many of those ahead of him - dropped another place to 11th, though only a second behind the guy in 10th. He gets hurt because he lacks explosiveness, but also because none of his teammates can ride up the climbs with him.
So, now everyone is thinking Yates is vulnerable. Even Froome is only 3.5 minutes behind him so if Yates cracked badly, Froome could easily make up that time.
And tonight's Stage is an absolute motherfecker. There should be a significant reshuffling in the GC, because surely not everyone will go over the top of the Colle della Finestre together and after that there's still two more climbs.
George needs to pack his climbing legs and probably play it cool. Just hang on the back of the big guns and let others fall away.
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Wow - Yates has cracked early on the Colle della Finestre. He's already lost a minute. Rohan Dennis is further back. Still 10kms of climbing to come and then probably 70 more kilometres - including two more big climbs.
Froome's Sky team is putting them to the sword.
George is hanging tough in the lead group of fifteen or so riders - at least for now.
....and now Froome has attacked and blown everyone off. Dumoulin is leading 3-4 other riders in a pursuit and George is with Pozzovivo and half a dozen others a little further back.
There's still more than 70kms to ride today.
Yates is 5.5 minutes behind Froome and more than 4 minutes behind George!
A BIT LATER...
....Froome has completed the descent of the Finestre - he's a minute and a half ahead of Dumoulin's Group. Pozzovivo (and George) are in a group of six, another minute back.
Yates is 16 minutes behind Froome now.
George is currently "virtual" eighth in the GC (according to me).
Froome has a 60km solo ride to go. Dumoulin and Pozzovivo also having to do the bulk of the work in their groups - still more sorting out to come.....
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It has certainly been one of the more interesting tours in recent times. The Giro is giving the TDF a run for it's money, that's for sure. When the top riders turn up the variety of the course keeps the pack shuffling which is great for spectators.
I, for one, have been bored with the tdf setting up a leader who then has his lead protected by his team for the rest of the race. -
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@Crucial Yeah - I'm pretty sure he's away from those three. Yates is definitely gone and Dennis cracked even earlier on the Finestre.
The commentators don't know where Konrad is, but he's not among the two groups chasing.
Edit: Actually, unfortunately Konrad has managed to join George's group - but, hopefully he's had to work hard to get there. Pity George couldn't quite stick with Dumoulin's group, because he could have taken the same armchair ride that Carapaz and Lopez have had.
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Still, so far he hasn't crapped out. Deserves a top ten on consistency alone. Gets one more crack to see who has legs left after today (if he has any himself)
TLJ don't seem that strong as a team to do anything other than help work a sprinter up for a crack in a group finish. Cant see them setting up George like Sky did with Froome.
Yates' lack of teammates showed out eventually. He had to put so much into the earlier mountains himself and back it up with a big TT that he finally blew out.
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