Road Cycling
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Finn ends up fourth in the GC - same time as Albanese in third, but misses out on countback.
Interestingly, it looks like UAE rode for Finn on the final day, but disturbingly, no sign of George in the latter stages - Majka and Ulissi were with him - and then just Majka.
Maybe they used up George on the first climb, but he's not really fired a shot (in terms of contending for anything) since the start of the year.
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Annoyingly, Sky doesn't appear to have any coverage of the Giro.
Remco was leading earlier, but he had to pull out with Covid. It's eventually come down to a three-way race between Geraint Thomas, Jaio Almeida and Primoz Roglic.
Roglic in some trouble last night on Stage 16, but Kuss helped him save the day.
Right now Thomas leads Almeida by 18 seconds and Roglic by 29 seconds. Still another mountain stage and a time trial to come, so could be anyone's.
Last 5km last night.
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If you’re in the UK it’s on C4 and S4C
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The Giro website showed Sky as being the coverage for NZ but have since removed it. I messaged Sky and got the usual “we don’t have the rights” which is standard code for “we wanted to pay fuck all”.
Mrs C subscribed to GCN for one month. Quite a good price for the amount of coverage. As Sky don’t have rights GCN isn’t geoblocked for NZ for Giro. -
Overnight a mountainous stage and Almeida the loser - Roglic and Thomas able to drop him and Thomas able to cover Roglic (and work with him to hurt Almeida), which he will be very pleased with. Almeida now 10 seconds behind Roglic and 39 seconds adrift of Thomas.
Huge mountain stage tonight followed by a time trial.
Thibault Pinot captured the KOM jersey, but just pipped for a stage win in his final Giro.
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Really hoping G pulls this win off.
The podcast he has been doing (Watts Occurring) during the Giro has been superb.
Really good to have in race opinions from the leader throughout the Giro.
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@Davesofthunder I reckon he's a hot favourite now.
I read an article that noted when Roglic launched, GT had no real difficulty going with him - and then Sepp Kuss - who had been making the pace was able to bridge across to Roglic and do some more work (hearsay for me, because I've only seen 2 minutes of youtube highlights). If Roglic was in tip-top form I don't think Kuss would get back - and the bits I saw, GT looked in no trouble and was sharing the work with Primoz.
Still, strange things happen in the mountains and it's far from done.
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Yep, GC Kuss was making light work of it to be fair and even when dropped back it seemed to be chilling on the wheels of the following group.
Huge day today and I think G has it in him but do feel like someone will break someone today!
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Stage ends in a bit of a stalemate - Roglic manages to take 3 seconds out of Thomas right on the line. He'll be a bit annoyed that he couldn't quite get past Cort, because there were five bonus seconds there that may end up being crucial. So he's 26 seconds behind Geraint and Almeida is 59 seconds back.
For what it's worth - in the stage 1 time trial - Almeida was fastest of the three, 14 seconds ahead of Roglic, with Geraint another 12 seconds back.
It's not worth much, because that one was flat. Here's tonight's TT course.
https://www.giroditalia.it/en/tappe/stage-20-of-the-giro-ditalia-2023-tarvisio-monte-lussari-itt/
A chance for Primoz to redeem himself for losing the Tour on a similar sort of profile?
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Well, a few shades of Primoz' helmet disarray, when he lost the tour - this time he lost his chain on the climb. But, despite that, in the end he's a bit too strong and able to put 40 seconds into Geraint and slightly more into Almeida.
If he stays upright on the final stage, he'll win the Giro by 14 seconds.
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Gutted for G but fair play Primoz
To dominate like that even with dropped chain is impressive
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Just had a look to see what George has been up to in recent times. He had a 7th in GC for the Tour of Austria, which is probably his best result this year. May or may not have been important for him retaining his UAE contract. He hasn't had much luck since switching there - pretty thin on results.
In the meantime, UAE are presently announcing a bunch of new signings - including Nils Politt and Pavel Sivikov.
Next up is probably the World Champs - NZ Elite Men's team: George Bennett (UAE Team Emirates, Nelson), Ryan Christensen (Bolton Equities Black Spoke, Hamilton), James Oram (Bolton Equities Black Spoke, Auckland), Laurence Pithie (Groupama-FDJ, Christchurch), Tom Sexton (Bolton Equities Black Spoke, Invercargill), Corbin Strong (Israel Premier-Tech, Invercargill). Sounds like it might be a course more likely to suit Corbin Strong.
You'd hope George will be lining up in the Vuelta - which starts 26 August.
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Vuelta a Burgos: Primoz Roglic moves into overall lead after stage 3 victory
Jumbo-Visma leader out-sprints four-man selection into Villarcayo
Looks like George is finding some form in the Vuelta a Burgos.
The winning move took shape over the demanding climb of Picón Blanco, where Yates’ UAE Team Emirates squad took up the pace-making and succeeded in isolating Roglič from his Jumbo-Visma teammates, but the Slovenian looked as unflappable as ever despite their efforts.
Jumbo-Visma had taken up the reins at the head of the bunch at the base of the climb in defence of Roglič and overnight leader Attila Valter, but the yellow and black jerseys soon melted away from the front of the race as UAE Team Emirates dictated the terms.
At one point on the upper reaches of the climb, Roglič had only the UAE trio of Yates, Jay Vine and George Bennett for company, but he never appeared unduly troubled by their forcing on the ascent.
6th on the Stage for George (working for Yates) and 6th in the GC.
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Despite his Vuelta a Burgos form, George didn't get picked for the big Vuelta. I think he was on a two year contract at UAE and it hasn't really gone as planned, so I wouldn't be surprised to see him move(d) on.
Finn Fisher-Black is on the UAE team - and Sam Gaze is also riding. I saw FFB sprinting against Vingegaard to try to deny Jonas two bonus seconds in an intermediate sprint a couple of days ago (Finn didn't manage it).
Interestingly, there's been a bit of a Lieutenants' Revolt in the Vuelta. Well, not really, but Sepp Kuss and Mark Soler were allowed in a strong breakaway a couple of days ago and stole more than a couple of minutes on the big GC contenders.
Kuss is presently in the red jersey, 43 seconds ahead of Soler. Kuss is 2.31 ahead of Remco and then you can throw a blanket over the big GC contenders: Roglic, Vingegaard, Mas, Ayuso, Almeida.
I'd really like to see Jumbo Visma back Kuss to win the whole thing. A super-domestique who has done so much to help others win big Tours. However, the crux for Sepp (and Soler) will probably come on Stage 10 - an individual time trial. Not usually his forte, but it's hard to know quite how good these guys can be, because they're often not going completely hard out in ITT's.
I'd guess Sepp would need to retain plenty of time over Remco, for TJV to back him - given they've got Jonas and Primoz, who probably have Remco covered anyway.
