Stage 20: Caldes / Val di Sole - Passo dello Stelvio
The penultimate stage of the Giro is the last mountain top finish of the race. The Passo dello Stelvio is a great colossus that has the potential to change the GC completely. Right before the Stelvio the Mortirolo will be climbed from Tovo di Sant'Agata. Its slopes are up to 20% and the bunch will be completely destroyed 50 kilometers from the finish line even if the pace is not too fast.
Sylvain Chavanel (Ag2r) and Stefan van Dijk (Vacansoleil) are the leading duo as they reach the final part of the climb to Teglio, the third KoM sprint of the day. 30 seconds behind is Jure Kocjan (HTC), while a bigger group of 7 including Simon Gerrans (Radioshack) and Johan van Summeren (Quickstep) is 1' 30'' back. The peloton is in no rush today and is already losing 7 minutes. Rabobank is setting the pace, but they are not leaving anyone behind.
BMC took the lead of the main bunch as they started climbing the Mortirolo. George Hincapie and Peter Stetina set a pace for Tejay van Garderen as the American is bidding for his first podium finish in a GT. Meanwhile, Simon Gerrans is leading the race on his own after leaving behind everyone else in the break. The Australian has 7' 15'' on the bunch.
Hubert Dupont took the pace setting from BMC in the second part of the climb, but his pace was not super fast as there are still more than 50 riders in the main group. However, Roman Kreuziger and Denis Menchov didn't seem to have a good day and were left behind. Simon Gerrans' lead is decreasing steadily, 4' 30'' halfway through the climb to the Mortirolo.
Gerrans reached the top of the Mortirolo still leading the race, but it will be difficult to see his adventure going on much longer. His teammate Frank Schleck jumped to get the KoM points in a bid to displace Rob Ruijgh from the first place in the classification.
The Mortirolo was too tough on many riders and only 19 of them remained in the group of the favorites at the start of the Stelvio. Even some riders were left behind in the mostly flat part between the last two climbs of the Giro, where Simon Gerrans was also reeled back in. The most notable riders no to make it into the front group were Laurens Ten Dam, who is losing 3 minutes already; Emanuele Sella, +4' 00'' and Tiago Machado, +4' 40''.
The riders were slowly losing track with the top riders of the GC and 10 kilometers from the finish line only 5 remained in front: Peter Stetina, Tejay van Garderen, Frank Schleck, David Lopez and Rob Ruijgh. However, even though BMC has two riders in front Tejay seems to be the one suffering the most. Andy Schleck and Jelle Vanendert are 1 minute behind, while a group of 12 including Hubert Dupont, Dries Devenyns and Steven Kruijswijk is losing 2 minutes.
Tejay van Garderen finally lost track with the top 3 with 7 kilometers remaining. However, he was lucky to have Peter Stetina to pace him to the top of the Stelvio. The American must suffer a little bit to keep his podium chances alive.
Rob Ruijgh is setting the pace in the front group to try to open the gap to Tejay van Garderen as much as possible. It has grown to 1' 05'' with the hard last 4 kilometers still remaining, so Ruijgh is starting to touch the win in the Giro with his hands.
Ruijgh and Lopez have left Frank Schleck behind as they are going to fight for the stage in the final kilometer of the Stelvio. Meanwhile, the distance to Van Garderen continues to slowly increase. David Lopez has yet to win a stage and this will be his last chance to do it.
Rob Ruijgh wins in the Passo dello Stelvio! The Dutch started sprinting ahead of David Lopez and even though the Spaniard kept him close he didn't have the legs to go past him. This is the third stage win for Ruijgh, who is now leading the points, mountains and GC. Frank Schleck lost 30 seconds in the finish line, while Peter Stetina and Tejay van Garderen lost a bit more than 2 minutes.
The GC's main point of interest tomorrow will be the fight for the second place. David Lopez is currently 7 seconds ahead of Tejay van Garderen but the American is a much better time trialist than the Spaniard and should have no trouble finishing clearly ahead. Behind them, the top 10 is pretty much settled as the huge gaps that we had in the last couple of days make the last time trial rather irrelevant.
We had not had any rider from the best team in the World in the featured rider section this season, so it is about time that we talk about them. Denis Menchov was the star signing of the Belgian team this season and he already started delivering. His season plan is mainly focused in the Vuelta a España later this year, but before leaving the leading role in the Giro to Dries Devenyns he took the chance to take the best win in his career at the Tirreno - Adriatico. Not only that, but Denis also got two stages and the points jersey.
The Tirreno - Adriatico seems to be the lucky race for the Russian, as he had already been in the podium last year. This was his best result in the two years that he raced for his home country team, Katusha. However, the early days in the career of Denis Menchov started in the HTC - Highroad team. He joined the team as a rookie in a team built around the figure of Pieter Weening. He showed his class by getting the young jersey in the Vuelta.
The end of season marked the appearance of a new Russian team in the World Tour and where better to go for Menchov than Katusha. He was the undisputable main leader of the team during the time he spent there, but was overshadowed by Andy Schleck in the first year he spent there even though Menchov got the only win of the season for the team in the Giro d'Italia. The 14th place in the World Tour rankings by Katusha at the end of 2012 meant that Menchov went looking for a more competitive team at the end of the season.
Denis Menchov is going to be faced with some of the best riders in his own team, but he proved straight away that he can handle the pressure. The evaluation of his season as a whole will probably be based in the results of the Vuelta later in August, but if he keeps the kind of progression he has had until now he can well be one of the dominant riders in the coming years.
The last stage of the Giro is a completely flat time trial in the streets of Milano. It is the only long time trial in the whole Giro but, placed after great mountain stages; it will not have a big impact in the outcome of the race. The only interesting point today is the fight for the second place of the podium, as Van Garderen is only 7 seconds behind David Lopez.
Levi Leipheimer (HTC) was the first among those that could win today's stage. The early best time had been set by Cameron Meyer, but the American lived up to the expectation and beat the previous time by 13 seconds, posting a 53' 21''.
Denis Menchov (Quickstep) completed a subpar Giro with a not very good time trial. He was supposed to fight for the stage but he could only set the 8th provisional time 20 seconds behind Levi Leipheimer. Even though he came to the Giro to support Dries Devenyns and Pieter Weening he should at least gone into the top 30.
Chris Froome (HTC) was close to his teammate Leipheimer in all the intermediate points but in the end he couldn't beat him. The British was only 3 seconds behind in the more than 30 kilometers of the time trial and took the provisional 2nd place.
Bauke Mollema (Vacansoleil) was the main favorite to take the win in the Giro but a couple of crashes in the first week buried the chances he had. However, he seemed to be fit from his earlier injuries and improved on Leipheimer's time today. He set 53' 18'', 3 seconds better than the American.
We jump to the top 6 in the GC. Andy Schleck (HTC) will finish at that place after a solid last week. However, the time trial is not his thing and could only set the 28th provisional time 35 seconds behind Mollema.
Jelle Vanendert (Lotto) was even worse than Schleck, clocking the 32nd best time 38 seconds behind Mollema. The Belgian seemed to have disappeared from the top positions of the Grand Tours but he came back strongly in this Giro. His 5th overall position will give him confidence for future competitions.
Frank Schleck (Radioshack) was also too far away to threaten the podium places of Van Garderen and David Lopez. He is narrowly short of the podium as he was in the Tour de France last year. The time trial was not too bad considering his abilities, 24th as he crossed the finish line 32 seconds behind.
Tejay van Garderen (BMC) showed again that he was in top form for this Giro by crushing Bauke Mollema's time. The American was 15 seconds faster and is going to take both the stage win and the second place in the podium from David Lopez. This is going to be the fourth win in a time trial for Van Garderen this year, even though Cameron Meyer is supposedly better in this discipline.
David Lopez (Euskaltel) could do nothing to keep Tejay van Garderen behind but did a good time trial nevertheless. He got into the top 10 27 seconds slower than the BMC rider. He will regret losing the second place in the podium, but this being his first podium in a Grand Tour he should enjoy the result. This is also the best result for Euskaltel in a Grand Tour.
Rob Ruijgh (Rabobank) cruised today to his first win in a Grand Tour. He follows Pieter Weening as winner if the Giro d'Italia, where the Dutch seem to have built a race for their own. He was 26th in today's time trial, 45 seconds behind Tejay van Garderen, but in truth the result of the stage doesn't matter at all for the young Dutch. Rabobank will also get their biggest ever win. The final podium of the race will have Ruijgh ahead of Van Garderen and Lopez.
The dominance of the race for Ruijgh didn't stop by winning the GC, as he will also get the mountains jersey home ahead of Frank Schleck and David Lopez. In the points competition he was beaten on the last day of the race by Tejay van Garderen, while David Lopez was third as well in that classification.
The only point of hope for the Italians in their home race will surely be the young jersey won by Emanuele Sella. In a very tight classification he ended up ahead of Thibaut Pinot by slightly more than 1 minute. The third was again a Spaniard, Daniel Moreno. Finally, BMC comfortably won the teams classification after placing Van Garderen and Stetina in the top 10 of the final GC. Rabobank was second while Quickstep got the third place.
Only a couple of weeks after the end of the Giro d'Italia the teams are already prepared for the Tour de Suisse. The main riders in the Italian race are here with the notable exception of Bauke Mollema, who probably needs a bit of time to recover from his two crashes in Italy. The organization has prepared a quite different route for this year, starting with a prologue around the town of Lugano. The second time trial will not be in the last day of the race, as was the norm in past editions, but will take place on day 7 before the last two mountain stages. Speaking about the mountains, there will be mountain-top finishes in Verbier and Arosa but probably the most difficult day will be the last with the climbs to the Glaubenberg and the Glaubenbielen before the finish line in Sorenberg.
The Tour de Suisse is one of the most prestigious stage races, maybe the most important one among the one week tours. It is usually used by the Tour de France contenders to prepare for the French race along with the Criterium du Dauphine. However, this race is important enough to be targeted on its own by quite a lot of riders. Frank Schleck won 4 years ago and last year the overall win went to Chris Froome after an outstanding final time trial.
Favorites:
- Denis Menchov (Omega Pharma - Quickstep): Menchov takes the leading role for the Tour de Suisse in the Quickstep team after working for Devenyns, who will not participate, in the Giro. The Russian already won the Tirreno - Adriatico earlier this year and the extra time trial kilometers that the Swiss race has will not hurt his chances for a good result.
- Peter Stetina (BMC Racing): Peter Stetina is in the same position as Menchov, but even working for Van Garderen he could get into the top 10 of the Giro. In Switzerland the BMC rider will have to show his climbing skills in the two mountain top finishes and in the last stage in Sorenberg.
- Hubert Dupont (Rabobank): Dupont was also supporting Ruijgh in the Giro and it looks as if it was going to be the other way around here. The French was 7th overall in the Giro and is starting to prepare his bid to defend his win in the Vuelta.
- Frank Schleck (Team Radioshack - Nissan): Frank seems to be the only rider from the top 4 of the Giro who is seriously tackling the Tour de Suisse. The Luxembourgish already knows what it feels like winning here and he has a great chance of doing it again, although less time trial kilometers would favor him a lot.
Other notable riders in the Swiss race will be Chris Froome (HTC - Highroad), Marco Pinotti (BMC Racing), Cadel Evans (Discovery Channel), Robert Gesink (Vacansoleil - DMC), David Lopez (Euskaltel - Euskadi) and Bart de Clerq (Lampre - ISD).
Many top notch sprinters are skipping the Tour de Suisse, given the lack of pure sprints, though it is surprising that others that can go past the hills are also missing. The riders to look at in Switzerland will be Andre Greipel (Lotto - Belisol), Marcel Kittel (Discovery Channel), Lloyd Mondory and John Degenkolb (Omega Pharma - Quickstep), Elia Viviani (Lampre - ISD) and Francisco Ventoso (Euskaltel - Euskadi).
The Tour de Suisse starts with a 7 kilometers prologue around the town of Lugano. The route is tougher than it would seem, because the riders will have to climb to the higher part of the city before turning back towards the lake. Tejay van Garderen has been the dominator of the time trials lately but having stated that he isn't too fit after the Giro we could see a surprise here.
Samuel Sanchez (Katusha) was the first important rider for the stage win to hit the road. The Spaniard used to be one among the top 3 time trialist but has been overtaken by some in this category. However, he set the first reference time (12' 46'' by improving on Xavi Tondo's time by 3 seconds.
David Millar (Sky) is yet to win a time trial this year, even though he won twice last year. Today his time hinted that this could be his day as he beat Samuel Sanchez by 3 seconds. Quite a big gap between two specialists in such a short route.
Levi Leipheimer (HTC) didn't have the best race of his life in the Giro and the Tour de Suisse neither started well for him. His prologue time was 8 seconds slower that Millar's and that puts him in the 10th provisional place when not even half of the field has raced in Lugano.
Not only from Van Garderen lives BMC in the time trials. Marco Pinotti is always around the top places very often as well. The prologue in Switzerland was very good for the Italian, who matched David Millar's time only to lose on the tenths of a second and get the provisional 2nd place.
Cameron Meyer (Quickstep) was the main favorite for today's prologue and, even if the climb in the route didn't fit him much, he delivered. The Australian clearly beat David Millar by 3 seconds. There will be few riders that can hope to match the 12' 40'' in the finish line.
Denis Menchov (Quickstep) made it clear that he was back to make a good impression in the Tour de Suisse and delivered the third best time so far, 3 seconds behind his teammate. He is peaking his form in Switzerland before resting for his main target of the year, the Vuelta.
Chris Froome (HTC) won the Tour de Suisse last year after a terrific performance in the last time trial in Bern. However, he wasn't as strong today and he could only record the 8th provisional time 5 seconds behind Cameron Meyer. However, the Brit didn't play down his intentions to defend the overall win that he got here last year.
Tejay van Garderen (BMC) was the last among the favorites to appear and it was clear that he didn't have the edge that he showed in the Giro. The American was 6th at the finish line 4 seconds behind Cameron Meyer, right behind Luis Leon Sanchez.
The first stage in Switzerland ends with the second stage win for Cameron Meyer this year. However, tomorrow's final in Verbier means that he will only enjoy the yellow jersey for one day. His teammate Denis Menchov is one of the climbers that is best suited to take the yellow tomorrow.
The first mountain top finish of the Tour de Suisse comes as early as the second stage. The route between Verbania and Verbier has the Simplonpass in the first half of the race, an endless mountain with more than 25 kilometers of climbing. After that, a long flat brings the riders to Martigny, where the road to Verbier is taken. The climb should produce the first differences in the race and we should start to see who the favorites for the GC are.
A group of 8 riders was in front as they reached the top of the Simplonpass. The most significant riders in it were Daniel Martin (Lotto), Thomas Voeckler (Movistar), Beñat Intxausti (Katusha) and Andreas Kloden (HTC). Radioshack was setting a not too fast pace in the climb, letting the gap grow to as much as 9 minutes. Meanwhile, the leader's team Quickstep were letting others do the chase.
Nothing too interesting happened until past Martigny. Steven Kruijswijk didn't want to wait until the proper climb to Verbier started and attacked shortly before the lasr intermediate sprint in Sembrancher (15 km to go). The break was still ahead, but the gap had been greatly reduced and they no longer posed a threat for the stage win.
The 7.5 kilometers climb to Verbier started with everyone back in the peloton, as Rabobank and Radioshack had set the pace all through the stage and didn't want any unexpected surprises. However, right after the start of the climbing Robert Kiserlovski (Lotto) attacked. He was soon followed by Bart de Clerq and Oliver Zaugg, but the most important men in the bunch didn't show their face.
Only Kiserlovski could open a gap with the bunch, but 4 kilometers to the finish line it had opened to be as big as 50 seconds. Roman Kreuziger and Wout Poels were pacing the bunch and they reeled back in everyone else that tried to break away. The main favorites of the stage could be letting the stage go away as they haven't done anything yet.
Andy Schleck was the first of the main riders to attack with a bit more than 2 kilometers to go, followed by Peter Stetina. By that time the stage was clearly for Robert Kiserlovski, who kept himself 40 seconds ahead of the Luxembourgish and 55 seconds ahead of the favorites group. The group of the favorites was starting to lose lots of riders as a result of the increased pace.
Denis Menchov and Frank Schleck tried to break the favorites group as they went into the last kilometer, while Robert Kiserlovski was already celebrating a few hundred meters ahead. The group of favorites was now down to 25 riders. Hubert Dupont didn't seem to be performing up to his team expectations, as he was just trying to follow his teammates up the mountain.
Robert Kiserlovski wins in Verbier! What a nice surprise to see the Croatian win in a pure mountain stage! He hadn't done much in the season so far, but he has delivered a great win after the faith his team put in him by making him the leader for this race. Andy Schleck took the second place, Menchov was third and Frank Schleck fourth all of them 42 seconds behind. Stetina and Gesink lost 58 seconds.
The main group of favorites was 1' 22'' behind Kiserlovski, including the disappointing Dupont. His team set the pace along with Radioshack all day for him to fail to perform in Verbier. Robert Kiserlovski is now the leader of the race and first in the KoM classification.
The transition stages of the Tour de Suisse start with a rather easy one between Martigny and Aarberg. The only difficulties of the stage are its length, again at almost 200 kilometers, and the cirsuit around Aarberg, with the climbs to Frienisberg and Innerberg. Some of the sprinters will probably have a hard time in the circuit, so the probable mass sprint will be very open.
The start of the stage saw a big 15 riders group go away. However, several teams weren't too comfortable with a break that big and they were eventually reeled back in. The break of the day was formed subsequently, but only 2 riders made it: Chris Anker Sorensen (Saxo Bank) and Ivan Basso (Radioshack). Lotto was setting the pace in the peloton halfway through the stage, but were comfortable with the 7' 40'' gap that the leading duo enjoyed.
The two guys in the front did never have a real chance of making it to the finish and they were caught at the top of the first climb of the day, the Frienisberg. Chris Anker Sorensen took the KoM points narrowly ahead of Peter Stetina as he was swallowed by the main group.
The difficult terrain between the two categorized climbs was not hard enough for someone to break away, so we got to the second climb, the Innerberg, with a big bunch still together. In truth it was less than 1 kilometer long and not with big slopes, so Peter Stetina took the chance to get some more points but that was all the excitement we would get from the climb. The 10 kilometers remaining were all very favorable, so it would be a quick rush for the finish line.
Surprisingly the downhill was more interesting than the climb, as Robert Kiserlovski and Oliver Zaugg responded to an attack by Denis Menchov in the descent and opened a nice 30 seconds gap. As they enter the last 3 kilometers it seems clear that they are going to fight for the stage win. The lack of a clear favorite for an eventual sprint played in the hands of the three in front, as there were some doubts on the bunch to chase in the start of the descent.
Denis Menchov launched the final sprint with the leader, Kiserlovski, right behind him. Oliver Zaugg apparently had enough with having made it into the break and didn't seem to be able to challenge for the win. Meanwhile, the preparation of the sprint for the fourth place is really chaotic and there were a couple of falls that fortunately carried no further consequences.
Robert Kiserlovski wins in Aarberg! The Croatian gets his second straight win in the Tour de Suisse and consolidates his lead in the GC. Denis Menchov was quite close to snatching the win but in the end the Lotto rider appeared from behind him and took the lead. The third place went to Oliver Zaugg, who climbs to the 4th place in the GC.
The group sprint was won by Jakob Fuglsang ahead of Cameron Meyer, losing 36 seconds with the group of three riders ahead. It was indeed a very weird sprint, as only Marcel Kittel was a pure sprinter among the top riders of the bunch. The transition stages continue tomorrow with another stage where the final circuit could play a role in upsetting the mass sprint.
where the hell is Kessiakoff???
