The Giro d’Italia is over, and put lightly: It was a fiasco for Citigroup – Cannondale. During the past three weeks, much criticism has hailed upon the poor souls, and rightly so. Citigroup’s performances were nothing else than embarrassing, awful and much reason to be angry at the new team philosophy. “The team now apparently targets only Belgian classics and le Tour�, wrote a journalist at Gazzetta dello Sport, "those races that appear to be the most important. For them, the Giro is no longer a target. This team is no longer italian despite so many italian riders on the team".


The Italian media and public have booed Citigroup’s riders at the Giro, but soon turned their attention to Citigroup – Cannondale’s riders who actually didn’t participate in the Giro d’Italia and preferred to stay at home or ride other races. General consensus was that the squad, which was selected for the Giro, was too weak. The riders at the Gio had nothing to be ashamed off, but the lack of interest from the other riders in the team was the problem, and thus they were a disgrace for the Giro and Italy. Especially Raphael Visconti was criticized, as was Moreno Moser, for skipping the Giro and instead focusing on some small races. Apparently they have come to think of Visconti as something that he isn’t.

A Journalist wrote, “Raphael would have been a great help for both Basso and Caruso in the mountains and hilly stages, and for Viviani in the bunch sprints. But in this way, Basso and Caruso were missing mountain support, which Moser and Visconti would have guaranteed. Viviani’s lead-out trains were a joke in itself meanwhile, and Visconti has shown already this season that he is gifted at building up the sprint for his teammates. Citigroup – Cannondale seemingly prefer to let their riders do whatever they wish, and don’t care about the Giro d’Italia in return. Instead, they send a weak team here and treat this race like a holiday race, don’t put any effort in it, don’t animate those young riders like Visconti and Moser to want to show themselves in their home land. Citigroup have no interest in the Giro apparently and they treated this race like it.�
Another Italian Journalist wrote: “With Visconti riding the Tour of California and Bayern-Rundfahrt, he showed that he avoids Grand Tours like the devil despises holy water. Visconti is not a complete rider and will never be. But more so: He lacks the passion for Italy and our races. He prefers to ride over cobblestones than to ride over our beautiful mountains or through those magnificent towns of ours, he shows himself to foreign audiences but vanishes when it comes to his own tivosi. I imagine he shruggs at the sight of the Italian flag, while wishing to be born aboard. The Giro is useless to Visconti. He may as well be useless to us too.�

Such harsh criticism towards our rider draws from the vivid downfall of our team. Elia Viviani showed some great action early on, but missed out two times close on the stage win against Alexander Kristoff. On stage 6 then, the bad news hit us: Ivan Basso fractured his hand during a crash. He had to abandon the Giro.

From there on out, it was up to Damiano Caruso, but last year’s two times stage winner and King of the Mountain, appeared to be in no shape to be as competitive as last year. In fact, his performances disappointed hard. The remaining sprint stages meanwhile turned into a race against wind mills, with Viviani losing his edge time and time again. Add to that the fact that Citigroup’s riding in breakaways was unlucky and unrewarded, and the Giro proved itself to be tough and became an impossible task for the squad.

In the third week eventually, the team was at a low point, when 4 riders abandoned and merely 4 remained. Caruso, Viviani, Kritzek and Bennett arrived in Brescia with sad faces, and a relief that the race was over.


The Giro itself was long-time a race of great action and excitement. Cadel Evans put in some stunning performances and claimed 2 stage wins in the first half, while Kristoff appeared to be the new strong sprinter in the peloton by beating Kittel and Cavendish.
Bauke Mollema (last year’s Tour de France third) had some issues in the first week and lost considerable amounts of time. However, the dutch rider fought his way back and passed Evans eventually in the rankings, whilst Nibali took the Maglia Rosa with a comfortable lead. As Mollema was gaining time on Nibali, the Shark of Messina seemingly just waited for the last two mountain stages, where he put in such fantastic rides that his advantage was out of this world. With the KoM classification and the points classification on his list too, Nibali has truly dominated this Giro d’Italia 2015, much like he did two years ago. Betancur secured the 2nd rank overall with a fantastic showing up on the 20th stage, as Mollema got yet another 3rd place at a Grand Tour.

Overall:	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana
KOM:	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana
Points:	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana
U25:	Warren Barguil	Giant-Shimano
Team:	AG2R La Mondiale

Stage	Name	Team	Leader’s Jersey
1, FL	Alexander Kristoff	Lotto – Belisol	Alexander Kristoff
2, TTT	BMC	BMC	Gianni Meersman
3, HL	Michal Morkov	Tinkoff – Saxo	Lars-Ytting Bak
4, HL MTF	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana	Vincenzo Nibali
5, FL HLF	Alexander Kristoff	Lotto – Belisol	Vincenzo Nibali
6, FL	Jens Voigt	Trek Factory Racing	Cadel Evans
7, HL	Cadel Evans	BMC	Cadel Evans
8, TT HL	Dario Cataldo	SKY	Cadel Evans
9, HL	Bauke Mollema	Belkin	Cadel Evans
10, MT	Cadel Evans	BMC	Cadel Evans
11, HL	Emmanuelle Sella	Androni	Cadel Evans
12, FL	Andrei Amador	Movistar	Cadel Evans
13, HL	Van Rensburg	Giant-Shimano	Cadel Evans
14, MT	Enrico Battaglin	Bardiani	Cadel Evans
15, MT	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana	Vincenzo Nibali
16, HL	Jeremy Roy	FDJ.fr	Vincenzo Nibali
17, FL/HL	Jose Herrada	Movistar	Vincenzo Nibali
18, MT TT	Carlos Betancur	AG2R La Mondiale	Vincenzo Nibali
19, MT	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana	Vincenzo Nibali
20, MT	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana	Vincenzo Nibali
21, FL	Arnaud Demare	FDJ.fr	Vincenzo Nibali

Giro d'Italia, Final Classification

Rank	Name	Team	Time
1	Vincenzo Nibali	Astana Pro Team	84h44'51
2	Carlos Betancur	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 8'19
3	Bauke Mollema	Belkin Pro Cycling Team	+ 9'36
4	Cadel Evans	BMC Racing Team	+ 12'37
5	Rafal Majka	Tinkoff - Saxo	+ 14'25
6	Domenico Pozzovivo	AG2R La Mondiale	+ 18'14
7	Michele Scarponi	Omega Pharma - Quick·Step	+ 24'26
8	Ryder Hesjedal	Garmin Sharp	+ 25'38
9	Beñat Intxausti	Movistar Team	+ 26'31
10	Dario Cataldo	Team Sky	+ 28'27