The second stage of this year’s Giro d’Italia is an absolute monster, at 244.1km. It runs from Alba to Parma and is almost entirely flat. The only real challenge today is the 2.6km climb of Tabiano Castello, which only averages 5.7%. However, coming after 211km, it could prove more of a challenge than would normally be expected. The first rider up the climb today will wear the KOM jersey, so surely the break will be quite a desirable place to be.
The favourites today are, rather unsurprisingly, sprinters. Chief amongst them are: Luke Rowe Matthew Goss Juan Pablo Forero Oscar Guerao Nolan Hoffman
Some are even tipping Theo Bos for a good performance today.
The race starts off shortly after the chief commissar waves the flag, with our first attempts to get into the breakaway. The first man to do so is Viktor Renäng. His teammate Grillo is surely looking forward to the sprint finish today and so Renäng’s presence in the break means that Sony don’t have to chase.
Renäng is shortly joined by another rider, Daan Rijntjes, who is probably seizing the chance to ride for himself before having to look after Fothen throughout the later stages.
The next two riders to come across the gap are Martin Reimer and Leigh Howard. Reimer is decently punchy and could be looking to have an early stint in the mountain jersey. Howard, on the other hand is probably here to put pressure on the other teams, who will realise that Howard will almost certainly win in a breakaway sprint.
These four riders are then joined by three more:
French time trialist Dimitri Champion
The Norwegian time trialist Sten Stenerson
And the British time trialist Bradley Wiggins
The pack seems content with these 7 riders and allows them to form today’s break of the day. Reimer is probably the best puncheur in this group and thus stands a decent chance of taking the mountain jersey. That is still almost 200km down the road however. In terms of GC positions, Renäng is best placed at +25” and Rijntjes is just behind him at +26”.
It seems that many of the TT specialists are seeing this as a real opportunity to capitalise on their high GC placing to try to make the break work today and perhaps move themselves into the pink jersey over night. Speaking of the pink jersey, Dominique Cornu is looking comfortable in his new attire and will be hoping that he can hold onto the jersey for at least a few days before the mountains begin.
The pace in the pack isn’t too fast at first, but on the descent from the first small rise, Wiggle’s race starts off inauspiciously as their best climber Dario Cataldo hits the ground on the side of the road. He gets up fairly quickly and seems okay to go on, but it remains to be seen how that fall will affect him in the coming days. He is helped back without much difficulty by his teammates Caruso and Nocentini.
Jack Wolfskin, Wiggle and Vesuvio are doing most of the work and keep the gap at an acceptable distance of about 10 minutes for a while. Then there is a rather strange occurrence as the Italian puncheur Damiano Caruso pulls over to the side of the road and gets off his bike. He looks very pale and generally unwell. He lies on the side of the road for a few minutes, talking with the race doctor. Finally, he gets up with the help of a couple of the spectators and steps into the team car. When later questioned by a furious Italin press, he informs them that he had a bought of food poisoning and couldn’t keep any food down. Wiggle’s Giro could not have started much worse.
The rain starts just as Jack Wolfskin start to raise the pace, slowly drawing closer to the break. The unpredictable conditions, coupled with the long day of racing, mean that there are inevitably punctures. The first man to do so is Nestle’s climber Yeison Delgado, and he is shortly followed by the aging hilly domestique Andrea Moletta. Despite their great efforts, the pace set by Jack Wolfskin proves too high for these men and neither of them make it back into the peleton.
Meanwhile up front the break do not contest the sprint point, instead preferring to keep the pace high. Reimer rolls over first, ahead of Champion and Rijntjes. This actually puts Rijntjes in the provisional lead out on course. Moving quickly on to the following climb, Reimer, as predicted, starts to stretch out the time trialists who are accompanying him. None of them try to come around him and Reimer goes over the top in first place, ahead of Wiggins and then Howard. Reimer will thus go into the mountain jersey for a day at least. The peleton come through at 2’20”, with 33km still to ride.
Joost Posthuma sets a furious pace up the hill, putting a handful of riders in serious trouble. Amongst them is Theo Bos! I guess this day, as with so many other days, will not be his.
With 14km still to ride, Jack Wolfskin continue to push the pace alone at the front of the pack, and they have the gap down to 36 seconds. Sensing that he might be better off doing this alone Reimer decides to go it alone. Wiggins and Rijntjes decide to follow after his attack and, noticing that Reimer is on the rivet, both of them go around him. These two time trialists call a truce and immediately start working together as best they can. The rest of the group, meanwhile, is swallowed up fairly quickly.
With 6km to go the gap to these two riders is holding fairly steady at 31”, and Jack Wolfskin have been relieved on the front by Wikipedia, who are sensing that Matt Goss’ opportunity is fading. However, Wikipedia find themselves lacking in time trialists to set a pace high enough. They aren’t the only ones who notice, as Evert Verbist attacks out of the group. He is followed by: Marcel Kittel Sebastien Rosseler
And Enrico Franzoi
This is an absolute disaster for Wikipedia. They had briefly called upon Jack Wolfskin to help them nullify this move, but with Rosseler going forward, Jack Wolfskin are no longer obliged to do so. None of the other sprinter’s teams want to drag Goss to the line and so they sit back and watch.
Realising that the pack behind won’t be catching them, the six men up front prepare to sprint it out in a disorganised mass.
Franzoi is clearly feeling brilliant today and he spurs on ahead of the others. He looks unstoppable and he takes the first stage victory for Italy at the Giro.
*[The victory picture didn’t save, sorry]
Rosseler sprints for a great second place, which will put him in pink tomorrow thanks to the time bonuses. Verbist’s aggression is rewarded with a third place. Kittel outsprints the two original breakaway men, who fade quite a lot. They can hear the pack approaching behind them, with Goss launching from Vangheel’s wheel. They manage to hold on, however, and Rijntjes takes third place ahead of Wiggins who is sixth. Goss is the best of the pack in 7th, and indeed he puts on such a huge turn of pace that the judges rule that there is no time gap between the break and the pack, meaning that no one loses any serious time, except for those who were unhitched either on the climb or coming down off it, but none of the favourites are back there.
Today’s result was a combination of an immensely long stage that sapped at the domestiques of a lot of the teams and wet conditions that favoured some of the cobbled specialists that are used to the harsher weather. Add to that the fact that not many top sprinters are here with a strong team around them and few teams really had a reason to try to chase the break down. It remains to be seen whether a similar sort of scenario will play itself out tomorrow. As stated, tomorrow we will have a new man in pink, as Sebastien Rosseler rather unexpectedly pulls on the pink jersey.
