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Giro d'Italia Discussion
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| SportingNonsense |
Posted on 22-09-2014 23:04
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The first Grand Tour of the season!
Route
3 Time trials
7 Flat stages
5 Hilly stages
6 Mountain stages
Full route preview: https://pcmdaily.com/forum/viewthread....d_id=33087
Past Podiums
| Year | 1 | 2 | 3 | | 2013 |  Phinney |  Madrazo |  Spilak | | 2012 |  Ricco | Sella | Pozzovivvo | | 2011 | Cunego | Sella | Nibali | | 2010 | Cunego | Pellizotti | Ricco | | 2009 | Cunego | Sella | Pellizotti | | 2008 | Cunego | Ricco |  A. Schleck | | 2007 | Cunego | Di Luca | Simoni |
The Contenders
 Damiano Cunego
Five consecutive Giro d'Italia wins, including 17 stage wins. He is unbeaten in this race, and after two years away (securing 1st and 2nd in the Tour de France) he is back - perhaps his last chance for one final GT triumph?
 Angel Madrazo
The man who duelled Cunego at the Tour, and last year became the first rider to beat the Italian in a Grand Tour. He has unfinished business at this race, hunting a GT Grand Slam, after losing by 13 seconds last year.
 Aleksandr Pluchkin
Giro debut for the Moldovan. After developing from 12th to 7th to 4th to 3rd at the Tour de France, last year looked like it could be his crowning glory, but an awfully timed puncture on Stage 13 wrecked his race. The three time trials could favour him.
 Riccardo Ricco
The former champion will like the look of the route. Although the time trials do not suit him, his all-round climbing abilities will provide him many opportunities.
 Emanuele Sella
Three times a runner-up, Sella is a man who commands respect. 4th in the Tour of Romandie is a sign of form, but is he past his best?
 Vincenzo Nibali
Italians so often dominate the podium here, and the Italian TT champion featured there in 2011. It should be a good route for him.
 Jose Alarcon
The pure climber is looking to prove himself at the highest level, having so often found himself in the PCT division. He could find the all-round nature of the route difficult to handle.
 Dan Martin
Having the season of his life, with 1st in Paris-Nice and 2nd in the Tour of Romandie. His best GT result is 10th at last year's Vuelta, and he will hope to exceed that
 Stefan Denifl
Has developed into a strong climber, with 6th at least year's Vuelta. He holds Wikipedia's hopes of defending the title.
 Yuri Trofimov
Usually a force to be reckoned with in the first week who fades back when the hard mountain stages kick in. With so many hills and time trials this year, can he buck the trend? He is certainly having a very good season.
That is just 10, but there are other strong climbers here:
 Rujano
 Fothen
 Van den Broeck
 Popovych
 Samwel
 Brambilla
 Costagli
 Gomez Marchante
 Antón
The Puncheurs
Some top level puncheurs are here to take advantage not only of the hill stages, but the bumpy looking flat stages. Fighting Trofimov and Cunego in those sorts of stages will be:
Simone Ponzi
Chasing the Points jersey, he has won Tirreno-Adriatico this year and been great in the Ardennes. The route certainly looks good for him. Even managed 16th overall in 2012.
 Jan Bakelants
I don't recall Bakelants ever featuring prominently in a ManGame Grand Tour - so this year could change that.
 Ben Gastauer
The best hope for Vesuvio in a low key team
Sprinters
Wisely the pure sprinters have steared clear, well, apart from  Kip. You need to be able to get over the hills here.
 John Degenkolb
You can't have a Grand Tour without a strong Pokerstars sprinter. Yet to win a GT stage.
Jurgen Roelandts
He has 6 Vuelta stage wins - can he expand his collection?
Daryl Impey
Has been riding well this year, and will want to add to a single Vuelta stage win
Filippo Pozzato and  Martin Reimer
Stronger on the hills than those above, but faster than the likes of Ponzi, Trofimov. Can they convert that combination to a victory?
Also:
Merino Criado
Hoffman
Keukeleire
Guardini
Van der Lijke
Time Triallists
There's chance for the first Maglia Rosa, and further exploits later in the race. So look out for:
Ignatiev
Malori
Durbridge
Viennet
Young Riders
It's the Grand Tour debut of mega talent Dombrowski. The Good Energy duo of Cattaneo and Scarponi should be strong. Both podiumed Avenir in the past two seasons, as did Kirsch.
Kwiatkowski can climb well on both terrains, as can Preidler and Boily. McCarthy may feature in the hills.
Full Startlist
Edited by SportingNonsense on 22-09-2014 23:08
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| roturn |
Posted on 22-09-2014 23:11
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Really excited for the Giro.
Gomez Marchante hopefully improves his Romandie performance and fights in the mountains.
Very afraid of those hilly stages 7 and 9 though. Having a 71mo domestique only can`t be too good. At least some puncheur domestiques, not much stronger though.
The GC startlist is just too strong. So except for having a huge fight for the podium, I can`t expect more than a top15-20 I guess. Less than 20th though would be a bit disappointing.
Sprinting wise I wanted to send a sprinter here despite the very few chances. Actually I could imagine seeing Guardini as top10 sprinter here and then only being there on the 16th stage and getting dropped on all others. 
Cunego is obviously a nice bet here, but I think Madrazo will become the 2nd non Italian winner in the Giro.
Edited by roturn on 22-09-2014 23:16
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| Rin |
Posted on 22-09-2014 23:16
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Small Tour Specialist
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What a great opening to the first Grand Tour 
I hope Cunego can make his last great GT here as I guess he won't be good enough in the future to make the podium.
 Team Bianchi - 2012 Man-Game ProContinental Tour Champions
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| Roman |
Posted on 22-09-2014 23:23
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Grand Tour Specialist
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First Man-Game Grand Tour ever with only 8 riders per team as well.
This is going to be total carnage for Rujano, it will be amazingly hard for him to achieve top 10 goal with mainly development squad as his support in this race with such a fantastic startlist. Still really looking forward for the race, will cheer for the last victory for Little Prince for sure.
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 22-11-2024 07:16
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 23-09-2014 00:10
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Brambilla coming here with good morale after Romandie.
A top 10 will be hard, but not impossible!
Edited by alexkr00 on 23-09-2014 00:10
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| Heine |
Posted on 23-09-2014 05:53
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Hoping for a top 5 from Sella and atleast 1 stage win from him or Pippo. Been looking forward to this race alot and I hope nationality bonus helps my riders 
Other than that I have a feeling that Pluichkin will win this, the race suits him. Cunego winning would be a nice ending for him here, as I agree he will not be able to win next year (but perhaps podium), a podium with him, Madrazo and Pluichkin seems likely for me this year, with Ricco and Nibali most likely on 4th and 5th (hopefully Sella can sneak in there, but I expect a fight for 6th for him considering the TTs)
When it comes to the sprints, not the strongest field. Interesting to see what Ponzi will do in the sprints?
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| ember |
Posted on 23-09-2014 06:27
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Brilliant to see that the Giro d'Italia is here! Absolutely no hopes for the GC with Antón, but I hope he'll be seen in breakaways on mountain stages, possibly going for the king of the mountains classification.
A bit higher hopes for Impey, but he'll be on his own, meaning it is likely to prove hard to win any stage against the faster sprinters on flat stages and Ponzi/Bakelants on the tough flat stages.
I'm happy five of our eight riders are Norwegian, we've come a long way compared to the first two seasons thinking of the nationality of the riders
Unusual that Cunego is "just" an outsider for the GT win here, but on paper the win should be between Pluchkin and Madrazo with everything coming down to the final four mountain stages. I expect it to be really tight before those, even Trofimov could be right up there, depending on how the first two mountain stages are raced.
Looking forward to see this one going, it's the first highlight of the season thinking of the best GC riders in the game. |
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| Luis Leon Sanchez |
Posted on 23-09-2014 06:43
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As a neutral I shall be supporting Angel Madrazo and Igor Anton. Will also be nice to see Impey achieve a couple of nice finishes.
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| jph27 |
Posted on 23-09-2014 07:32
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Fantastic preview SN
With all 3 of my loanees here, I'm hoping to see something from them. I expect Guardini is the only one who gets his own chances, but Bagot might get in a lucky breakaway and Petit should be a good help to Roelandts. |
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| Gustavovskiy |
Posted on 23-09-2014 07:46
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There is no better way to start the GT season than with an impecable preview, thanks for that SN. It would be nice to see Cunego reach glory one final time after all his history with this race, but it seems we will have a battle of epic proportions this time around.
For us it seems like our time ahead of Santander has come to an end. Fothen isn't a proper candidate for a top10, but a top15 result would be nice for a change.
Good luck to all the managers.
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| niconico |
Posted on 23-09-2014 09:18
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Grand Tour Specialist
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Very cool, this should be a great race with Pluchkin vs Madrazo, and then Cunego to top it off. Pluchkin came out the loser against those two in the 2012 Tour de France, so hopefully he can win it this time.
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| SotD |
Posted on 23-09-2014 10:23
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I'm really not happy that the peloton is packed with top puncheurs. I really had a hope that Ricco getting stagewins and sprinting for bonus seconds was going to be his best chance, but seeing Cunego, Trofimov, Bakelants and Ponzi here leaves little chance for Ricco to excel there, hence top 5 will be difficult I think. I will lose time on the TT's, and I believe the top 5 would be something like this:
1. Aleksandr Pluchkin
2. Angel Madrazo
3. Damiano Cunego
4. Vincenzo Nibali
5. Some random bloke
I hope Ricco will be that random bloke though.
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| fjhoekie |
Posted on 23-09-2014 10:28
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Grand Tour Specialist
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Prevar is here
Hope to see him in one of the stages...
For the GC Cunego is my favourite, but I would also love to see Pluchkin do well.
Manager of Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska in the PCM.Daily Man-Game |
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| Bushwackers |
Posted on 23-09-2014 16:24
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Awesome! This is going to be a great race. I'm thinking Nibali should finish just off the podium inside the top 5 and I would be happy. This is obviously going to be a good fight between Pluchkin and Madrazo, with Cunego also in the mix but I doubt he'll win again. Well I'm excited!
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| Selwink |
Posted on 23-09-2014 16:32
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Grand Tour Champion
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Let's see what Kuznetsov can do. If he can perform here, he should be a star at CT for me next year.
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| FroomeDog99 |
Posted on 23-09-2014 16:46
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Grand Tour Specialist
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Our first ever GT, should be great. Pretty confident it's the first all-African team as well in a mangame GT. Really looking forward to seeing how the likes of Ben Nasser and Samwel do. Also hope the other riders get the odd mention, especially Kudus.
Should be a great battle at the top of the GC. Cunego could have the edge though at home.
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| beagle |
Posted on 23-09-2014 17:43
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Grand Tour Specialist
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As mentioned in preview, there can´t be any GT without strong Pokerstars sprinter. Unfortunately, Degenkolb is most likely only my hope for good result here. Or maybe Wallays could surprise in one of hilly stage, if he will be able to join right break. And that´s all.
Anyway, I´m really looking forward to first hard battle between GT monsters, this time Cunego, Madrazo and Pluchkin. My bet is Madrazo, but it won´t help to Santander to survive PT this year, I guess. Speaking to Santander, mb2612´s last visit on site was 2 months ago. Does someone know, why he becomes inactive? It would be really shame to lose another long-lasting MG team.
Manager of Polar in Man-Game
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| Stromeon |
Posted on 23-09-2014 18:21
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Looks like it's going to be an exciting race to follow from a neutral perspective
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| Smowz |
Posted on 23-09-2014 18:33
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Wow startlist is amazing. Madrazo and Pluchkin should probably mean that Italy continues to be off the top two rungs. Though you never know with Cunego or perhaps Ricco - this is not too dissimilar to the Giro he won (albeit with a far weaker startlist).
My hopes are somewhat modified. Jose Alarcon, I would like to think will be thereabouts in the mountains and I have a hope that the hills end up being just a gangbang. A place in the top 10 would be solid, but pushing for a top 5 would be amazing.
Hoping for some chances of getting in breaks - not in the top tier of sprinters so no need to be pointlessly chasing on the flatter days, unlike last year.
Love the preview - looking forward to the race.
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| fintas |
Posted on 23-09-2014 18:53
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Good result for 'my' rider Alfredo Balloni
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