Strong teams from Astana, Katusha and Movistar climbing wise obviosuly. Movistar though with the best squad, we'll be seeing a lot of them in front.
Uran has decent support from OPQS in Poels, De Gendt, Pauwels and Brambilla. Should be fighting for another podium here, but is bit of unknown coming to the race.
Orica to win the TTT here. Should produce a very strong leadout for Matthews.
Pierre Rolland. Right change of sceneary, not too sure what too expect, but if comes in shape I could see him doing a performance ala Anton few years back taking one or two mountain stages from breaks.
Hesjdeal and Martin presents nice duo for Garmin, very interested in how they do.
Sky brining a very interesting team. Cataldo going for GC, Top 10 maybe duoable. Kennaugh is interesting addition, I guess going for stage wins with Siutsou in mountain stages and leaving to prepare for Tour in last week? With EBH they will go stage hunting a lot, and Swift for tougher finishes.
Davide Villela makes his Giro debut since turning pro this year, will be interesting to see how he goes. Another interest is Kelderman. The competition aside Top 3 or 4 isn't that great, so Top 10 should be a target for him and show his talent in Grand Tours.
Edited by Alakagom on 22-04-2014 18:28
As Alakagom covered the GC, let me cover the sprints (simply chronological by startlist appearance):
Viviani has a nice potential train with Ratto and Gatto who can both go for own chances in hillier stages.
Duque is not quite what he used to be anymore, but maybe it's enough for a sneaky podium somewhere when others are dropped.
Belletti is always there or thereabouts in the Giro, but he's rather on his own in the climber-heavy Androni squad.
Bouhanni is certainly a good bet for a podium on a standard sprint stage, Soupe proved here and there that he can produce a massive leadout.
Sonny Colbrelli. Period.
Tyler Farrar. Period.
Roberto Ferrari. Period.
Oss is another versatile rider to look out for, although he might have lost a bit of (or at least not improved on) what made him a great leadout for Sagan some years ago.
BMC has another sprinter in Wyss who can be the surprise of the Top 5 in weaker WT races, let's see if he can ride slipstreams here as well.
Kittel is obviously the main favourite for lots of wins and showed good form recently. You only have to wonder how much of that he wants to reserve for the TdF, and whether he makes time cuts.
His support is great in Mezgec and Veelers as two amazing leadout riders/sprinters and De Backer showed he can keep or set a high tempo in PR.
Geschke is the Giant man for when those are dropped.
For Neri Sottoli, Mauro Finetto is on fire this season, Francesco Chicchi is still around (and still going decently), while Colli has some sprint results as well.
Ale-Jet is not getting younger and has probably no support here, but I wouldn't mind him seeing in the mix possibly one last time.
Ben Swift showed great form in Pais Vasco and is certainly one of the guys to bet on for the selective sprint stages. EBH is here, but that could mean anything
Matthews was a stunning 12th for a sprinter in AGR and will challenge Swift, but could win the flat sprints as well. Lots of TTers in the Orica lineup means he should never be badly positioned.
Nizzolo needs a good day to fight Kittel, but is certainly in the second tier right behind him. Van Poppel knows how to navigate him around as well, but Danilo Hondo is the unbeaten living legend of leadout riders present.
A very quickly compiled favourites list (always happy to receive input of all kinds)
*****
Kittel
****
Bouhanni
Viviani
Nizzolo
***
Matthews
Farrar
Belletti
Petacchi
**
Swift
Finetto
Ferrari
Colbrelli
*
Duque
Oss
Wyss
Chicchi
Edited by cio93 on 22-04-2014 19:26
I noticed the startlist earlier on today, observed it as well.
Can't wait for the Giro. Hope Quintana & Purito make sure it'll be a nice battle, but I fear the latter can't keep up with Quintana.
So curious about what Kelderman can do. I genuinly think he can finish 8th or so in the GC, he improved a lot, also compared to last year(Don't forget he was a helper back then, btw )
Quintana is already at favorite status..
I know he is young and all. Still I would like him at TdF.
Behind favorites there is so many interesting names I like to follow and expect first strong GT for them.
I believe that after Giro we will have few new names for future
Wouldn't it be time for a Pre-Giro topic now? We had it last year, didn't we?
Edit: Wait, no, we didn't, but we just had the Week 1 topic up fairly early.
Edited by Jesleyh on 22-04-2014 20:11
Looking forward to seeing how Garmin do. They're only really missing Talansky from their A squad so let's see what happens! Looking forward to see Dan hopefully get some leadership, seeing how Ryder bounces back, as well as if Farrar can actually show decently.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Thanks for the analysis Alak and cio, that's really helped me to focus on who to watch out for in what should be an interesting race
For me, this needs to be a good Giro, with exciting racing and a fight at the top. One the whole, it's my favourite grand tour but recently hasn't really merited that. Last year, an interesting first week turned into nothingness and then Nibalisation; the year before was close but apart from a couple of brief moments nothing actually happened; and the year before that was just... well... you know...
So to summarise, it's been arguably three poor Giro's in a row, time for a good one this year
Thanks for the info guys, i see this as Giro of two teams, with Movistar ruling the mountains and Giant ruling the flats, with crazy italian attackers everywhere.
Any info whats going on at Sky??? Pulling out riders of some competitions, the leaders taking part of few races and now only with 6 riders at La Flèche Wallonne and Giro del Trentino???
Edited by fickman on 23-04-2014 13:39
fickman wrote:
Any info whats going on at Sky??? Pulling out riders of some competitions, the leaders taking part of few races and now only with 6 riders at La Flèche Wallonne and Giro del Trentino???
Maybe the bottle with marginal gains is almost empty and they're saving what they have left for the Tour.
Great! Now a lot of dopers can use the "bad meat" excuse. I wonder how Contador feels now.
Well, there's quite a difference between the cases. Mainly Rogers eating the meat in China and Contador in Spain, if I'm not mistaken. There has been precedent of clenbuterol from Chinese meat (some German table tennis players have been cleared from charges as well for instance), while Contador claimed contaminated meat from Spain, where there are thorough controls of the farmers with virtually no positives for clenbuterol (correct me if I'm wrong). One could argue that it was still Rogers' fault for eating meat in China despite the UCI warning, but he has been punished by taking the Japan Cup win from him, so I think it's ok the way it is.
I think not even in ESP HD is going to be shown or at least I was thinking about buying HD+ to get to see it and cant find it nowhere only highlights of every Stage Edited by fickman on 24-04-2014 18:17
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