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Giro d'Italia Discussion
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| whitejersey |
Posted on 30-12-2025 15:38
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That's a wrap for the GC. Incredible race filled with ups and downs brought forward by great 20 great reports so far, thanks for those KB very much appreciated!
Kudus winning the race is vey much deserved but it's hard to say that if Bernal hadn't cracked early on that he woulnd't have run away with it. I do like that stronger teams seem to be necessary to control the breaks in this version of PCM it has made this race exciting for me personally getting to see Barguil terorrise the breaks sadly falling just a little short of the ultimate prize of the KoM, congrats to Alex on that one after a very intense battle! Barguil snapping up a stage win along the way was a fantastic milestone in our debut GT and is a moment I won't forget for a long time.
Barguil's mountain antics combined with Van Poppel's efforts in the sprints means that we have left a memorable impact on the Giro and while points won't be put onto the rankings it has been a great joy following the race over the last threeish weeks.
Only real way of topping it all off would be a Van Poppel sprint victory tomorrow but I expect his old legs to be cooked tomorrow as the main sprinter guns will want to snatch one last drop of success with the points jersey still somewhat open if Gaviria has a nightmare tomorrow.
Lastly, congrats to Nemo on an incredlbe win for Aular who redeems his subpar Giro so far and snatches a top 10 GC spot!
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| ember |
Posted on 30-12-2025 18:39
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Team Leader
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Brilliant final mountain stage, and thank you for the great report, kb! 
Fun battle for the GC too, with Kudus being clutch just when it was needed. Big GC day for him, adding to his palmares, and this time in a very different way compared to last year’s Tour.
Also, big congratulations on the stage and epic breakaway, Nemo!
Williams tried again, very happy with that. |
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 30-12-2025 22:42
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Grand Tour Specialist
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What a great final day for Stüssi. It was such a big break with some really strong riders and in the end he was only beaten by a very strong Aular and even managed to gain a few GC spots along the way which is fantastic. He’s about where I thought he’d end up pre-race now, so a good effort overall.
Congrats on a terrific win Nemo! Aular dropping off the face of the earth a few days ago must have been the plan all along 
And big congrats Bushwackers on Kudus finally confirming the win. Such a strange path the GC has taken, and although the final GC looks realistic I can’t help but think it was a bit random on its journey to this stage.
Hopefully Gaviria can have a good day tomorrow and confirm the points jersey, fingers crossed. Thanks for another lovely report too kb
Indosat - ANZ HQ
"This Schleck sandwich is going to cause serious indigestion for Evans" - Phil Liggett |
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| SotD |
Posted on 31-12-2025 09:35
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World Champion
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A bit of a nasty gap there, that could have changed things. Not sure it did in any significant way, but not ideal for subleaders to lose time on the flat final stage.
Anyway. We came away with a top 10 GC (by the teeth) and two stagewins. Despite having not seen anything of use from neither Kinoshita nor Christakos I have to consider the race a succes. It was almost spot on my pre-season estimate, which I was a bit doubtful might have been too high. But 450 points seemed to hit it almost perfectly in the center. I have the same estimate for the Vuelta where I don't have Kinoshita, Vine or Zingle, but rather Koumpetsos, Ioannidis and Kiriakidis. Not sure they can gather the same amount of points unfortunately. Koumpetsos would likely have been a better fit here than Kinoshita looking at how those hilly stages turned out. Maybe he can get a couple of good shots at the Vuelta, although I suspects better cloned versions of him to be there.
Thanks a lot for the reports, they were very interesting from stage 1 all the way to the finish - Job well done for sure!
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| Ollfardh |
Posted on 31-12-2025 09:52
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Tour de France Champion
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I never thought Verwilst would be the person costing us points and the stage win goal. I mean, we were close a few times but in the end Verwilst joining the break on tough stages instead of Van Gils or Van Poucke was just stupid AI.
Thanks for the reports throughout the holidays!
Changed my sig, this was getting absurd.
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| alexkr00 |
Posted on 31-12-2025 11:02
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World Champion
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Another top 10 by Kooij is nice. Too bad Champoussin didn't snatch more ciclamino points in the previous stages, it could have lifted him up a few places, but 9th is a nice surprise anyway.
A good race for us. Stage win and KoM for Champoussin is basically achieving both of our goals, which is a wonderful performance (not a performance worth of PT champions, like someone keeps hinting  , I don't think it's even enough to help us keep the lead for another month even).
Finally getting that blue jersey after Formolo lost in dramatic fashion last year. Nothing worst than losing the competition with the same amount of points as the winner. With Formolo winning the KoM jersey in La Vuelta a couple of years ago, we only miss the polka dots from Le Tour from our collection. Which Formolo will try to get this summer!
Gaviria is frustrating at times, but winning 3 (I think) stages and the points jersey is in the end a good performance so I guess things kind of evened out in the end. Congrats, Eden!
And, of course congrats to Bushwackers for taking not one but two jerseys home. It might not have been the dominant display from Kudus that you were dreaming of, but it got the job done in the end.
Thanks for the wonderful reports throughout the race, kb!
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| Bushwackers |
Posted on 31-12-2025 11:41
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Small Tour Specialist
Posts: 2000
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Thanks again to KB for an incredible race! Congrats to Eden and alex on the points/KoM jerseys, as well as redordead and beagle for the podium.
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| Croatia14 |
Posted on 31-12-2025 11:56
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Great racing, love the results by Pogacar and Foss!
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| Eden95 |
Posted on 31-12-2025 13:53
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What a final stage from Gaviria! He really needed to step up here with Kemboi breathing down his neck and he did it in the best way possible. 3 stage wins and the points jersey is awesome. He was pretty terrible in the other stages, but those three made the difference in the end. Nur Hasan also seemed to deliver him to the line well here which is great. Stoked to take the points jersey at the Giro - a big milestone for the team. Also, our first GT stage wins since 2019 when König and Warchol took a stage each in the Giro and Vuelta.
Stüssi rode a stock standard race for a rider of his skillset in this field, with his break exploits on stage 20 the highlight. 13th is decent here considering the racing, and being up there in the KOM standings is a bonus. Hopefully he can meet a more forgiving field at his next GT and work his way into the top-10.
Congrats Bushwackers on Kudus taking the GC, although a bit of a tumultuous path to get there in the end. Pogacar and Bernal on the podium are also great to see, happy for beagle and redordead on good performances. As well as Alex with Champoussin showing that he’s a real candidate for future training and could end up a really exciting rider in the future (if he isn’t already). Congrats to Fab too on Darbellay having an awesome race, hopefully you drop in again soon. Good to see Foss do so well too.
Thanks KB for the reports, reporting a GT is a huge undertaking and each report was a pleasure to read. Thanks mate!
Indosat - ANZ HQ
"This Schleck sandwich is going to cause serious indigestion for Evans" - Phil Liggett |
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| Ad Bot |
Posted on 28-01-2026 11:52
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| baseballlover312 |
Posted on 31-12-2025 15:17
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Well, definitely a good way to end the GT for us with AKA finishing second in the final sprint. He fought and scraped his way inside the time limits the final week, ending up as the lantern rouge at over 7.5 hours behind Kudus. I like to think today's podium made that suffering worth it, as it's our best result of the entire race, and a nice way for him to say goodbye to the Giro, the race he took a stage in as a wildcard rider, in his final year. Great work Asbjorn!
As to the rest of the race, unfortunately we just got caught in that awkward spot Knockout kept fearing through the race. It seems Carthy was considered too strong for a breakaway, but obviously was a tick below the level of the top 5 GC guys, especially given the enormous TT time gaps. So, he ends up outside the top 10 with no stage podiums or other classifications to back him up. A complete reversal of last year, and a huge dent in our points tallies. I guess good karma has to equalize just as much as the bad. His final result is pretty similar to Quintana's 2023 GTs for us, so hopefully not bad enough to sink us (though at least then we had a Galta GT too, which we don't anymore). We will need to hope for some better AI luck in the Vuelta later on.
Congrats to Bushwackers, Eden, and everyone else who had a successful race. Thank you kb for the consistently excellent reports throughout the holiday season!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy |
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| knockout |
Posted on 01-01-2026 17:44
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Grand Tour Champion
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I'm glad Ovsya ended this race by doing at least one strong sprint. 4th place is solid even if the rest of his race was super disappointing.
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters! |
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| Heine |
Posted on 03-01-2026 17:53
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Grand Tour Specialist
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Finally read trought the entire thing, congrats to all stage winners and total winners
An extra congrats to Bushwackers on the GC win!
But mostly, fantastic work on the reports! A great read!
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| beagle |
Posted on 04-01-2026 19:35
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The second half of the race was unfortunately not so successful for us. An incomprehensible collapse in the first mountain stage of the third week dashed all hopes of an overall victory much earlier than I expected after the dominant time trial. Losing 4 minutes to the biggest rivals is hard to swallow. So I was hoping for some "Landis 2006 miracle", but unfortunately it didn't come. From this perspective, the final third place is not so terrible.
Congratulations on the final / deserved / expected victory to Bushwackers and redordead for 2nd place. However, I think that all three of us expected a significantly higher income of points from the race.
Last but not least, thanks a lot to kb for the fantastic coverage of the race!
Manager of Polar in Man-Game
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| redordead |
Posted on 05-01-2026 08:28
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Despite finishing 2nd overall this is easily Pogacar's worst GT to date. Even if we somehow won it in the end it would still be a bad race with no points from stage results.
Thanks for the great reports, but it was a frustrating race to follow.
"I am a cyclist, I may not be the best, but that is what I strive to be. I may never get there, but I will never quit trying." - Tadej Pogačar
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| Nemolito |
Posted on 05-01-2026 08:41
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Classics Specialist
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First of all, thank you kandesbunzler26 for yet another amazing GT coverage. You've done more GT's in 2025 than most of the pro riders in their life I think
Have been a bit absent last two weeks with the holidays and never really on my computer either, but reading the reports on my little phone screen brought some extra joy to the holidays.
In first instance this was definitely because of my team's efforts, however Aular had a nice first mountain stage, but it all went quite downhill after that. Not being there in mountain stages (or with that super random attack), then starting to lose time on flat/easy stages as well, etc. Was frustrating to see way weaker riders chill in the top-10 or maybe even still top-5 at that point. But I got lucky the final two stages went how they went, and also thanks to the nice team support by mostly Osorio and Carcueva.
A second place on a stage followed by a stage win (also his first win for the team after several podiums) and a ninth in GC to secure that top-10 is great. Ideally he would have beaten the two guys above him, but can't always get exactly that what you hope for Halvorsen with some nice consistency as well, which shows in the points rankings and his second GT stage win for us.
A nice and 'correct' podium in the end as well I think. Congratulations to Bushwackers!
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| DubbelDekker |
Posted on 07-01-2026 21:36
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The holidays were very intense so I also have some catching up to do. Reading this entire Giro was a great start. Very enjoyable race with some thrilling rider arcs to follow. Thanks kandesbunzler!
I think Dombrowski overall did a solid job. He was very active, even attacked at times and fifth overall is a good result.
Congratulations to Bushwackers!
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| OlegTinkov |
Posted on 19-01-2026 10:51
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First of all thanks kandesbunzler26 for 21 amazing reports, it was a real joy to read them. Congratulations to  Kudus/Team UBS, although he failed to win a stage, he at least was able to take the pink jersey back home and with Balmer taking the u25 classification it still was a good race for them.
| Stage | How | Who | | 01 Prologue | Individual |  Ganna/King Power | | 02 Flat | Mass sprint |  Zingle/ELCO - ABEA | | 03 Flat | Mass sprint |  Halvorsen/Los Pollos Hermanos | | 04 Flat | Mass sprint |  Kemboi/cycleYorkshire | | 05 Hill | Uphill sprint |  Madouas/Team Puma - SAP | | 06 Flat | Mass sprint |  Gaviria/Indosat Ooredoo | | 07 Hill | Uphill sprint |  Trakhov/Tinkoff Team - La Datcha | | 08 Hill | Breakaway |  Paulus/Xero Racing | | 09 Mountain | Breakaway |  Barguil/Specialized | | 10 Mountain | Mountain sprint |  Bernal/Polar | | 11 ITT | Individual | Bernal/Polar | | 12 Flat | Mass sprint | Kemboi/cycleYorkshire | | 13 Hill | Breakaway |  Kirsch/EA Vesuvio | | 14 Mountain | Breakaway |  Darbellay/Jura GIANTS | | 15 Mountain | Breakaway |  Champoussin/Rabobank | | 16 Flat | Mass sprint | Gaviria/Indosat Ooredoo | | 17 Mountain | Mountain sprint | McNulty/King Power | | 18 Hill | Breakaway |  Habimana/Bralirwa - Cegeka | | 19 Mountain | Breakaway | Giannoutsos/ELCO - ABEA | | 20 Mountain | Breakaway | Aular/Los Pollos Hermanos | | 21 Flat | Mass sprint | Gaviria/Indosat Ooredoo |
Also congratulations to all the teams who had big wins during this Giro;
Indosat Ooredoo winning 3 stages with Gaviria + the Point Jersey
King Power winning the prologue with Ganna and one of the hardest mountain stages with McNulty
ELCO - ABEA winning the first mass sprint thanks to Zingle and a nice breakaway win with Giannoutsos
Los Pollos Hermanos winning the second mass sprint with Halvorsen and the queen stage with Aular
cycleYorkshire winning twice with Kemboi
Polar winning two in a row (mountain stage/time trial) thanks to Bernal
Rabobank winning a stage and the Mountain Jersey with Champoussin
From Tinkoff Team - La Datcha's point of view; Vingegaard must have had a weak condition all Giro long, luckily for us Mamykin, Arslanov, Foliforov, Novikov and especially Rybalkin made up for it. Banaszek was pretty good in the mass sprint (2,3,4,5,2x11,12) and Trakhov's victory (Stage 7) made this Giro a success.
Edited by OlegTinkov on 19-01-2026 11:00
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