Giro d'Italia Discussion
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alexkr00 |
Posted on 09-01-2025 08:39
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Van Poppel finally has a decent sprint, but it's behind the breakaway 
I'm glad that Formolo is chasing the KoM jersey now that he has dropped from the top 10 in the GC. The breakaway fighting for the stage win would have been nice in the last stage, but with that not happening the good news is that he is not back in the GC fight so he should still be allowed in the breakaway in the next stage, which is a must if he wants that blue jersey at the end of the race.
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Bikex |
Posted on 09-01-2025 11:44
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A very anonymous Giro from us so far. Sanikwathi's 2nd place in a sprint stage and Chaiyasombat still being in contention for the white jersey are the hightlights so far. I had hoped for a little bit more from breaks. At least we were in the only successful one so far, even if Phodingam couldn't really capitalize on it.
It's nice to see that the gamble of sending Lutsenko here is paying off for Gazelle. Years ago I had the same strategy on a hilly GT with less success. My puncheur here, Quita, obviously suffers from the strong competition in the hilly stages. Probably I could've used his race days better.
Thanks for the great coverage of the race so far. Looking forward to the final stages! |
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kandesbunzler26 |
Posted on 09-01-2025 14:16
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The stage you all waited for ...
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Nemolito |
Posted on 09-01-2025 14:32
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Well, with this leader and (T)TT we should have really gone for a podium in the GC, but every mountain stage was disappointing, and add to that some time lost in the hills and you finish behind riders you should have never finished behind. Theoretically sixth or fifth GC might still be possible with the TT, looking at the distance and the TT skills of Choi and Stüssi that are slightly lower than Eastman, but should have never been in this position to start with. Barely top-10 in any mountain stage so nothing scored there either. Very disappointing to say the least, as this was the GT we wanted/needed to score to boost our survival chances. Adding this to some other disappointing hilly/sprint races so far it's starting to look bad for us now.
Congratulations on the win to bbl, and thanks for a very nice report as always, kb
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knockout |
Posted on 09-01-2025 14:41
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Finally some good stuff 
Beautiful ride by Foss, claiming second on the day and securing his GC position. Unfortunatelly, the gaps to the top 10 riders are too large already so that he likely cant really profit from it in terms of GC result. I think Wellens / Hirt / Almeida are just out of reach but we'll see. I wouldnt trust my own TT prediction skills too much 
Plapp also had a pretty good day. He now sits in 29th in GC between a lot of riders with very similar times. None of the riders behind him should be able to overtake him while Aranburu and potentially some guys like Foliforov, Fouche, Chaiyasombat or Brozyna could still be overtaken by him. If I end up looking at a 25th place in the end, that would be pretty good for him.
Bellan in 39th is riding a fantastic race and i think he might be able to defend that spot as well.
Thanks for the report! And congrats to bbl, Carthy to the rescue!
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters!
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Fabianski |
Posted on 09-01-2025 14:43
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Hugh Shikai almost did the unthinkable...
I do and will always wonder why such a group would get a huge gap, given the pretty easy first part of the stage where a breakaway should be easily kept under control. But with the current AI, something like this was always going to happen - and we've been lucky that Carthy was the only one of our direct competitors trying to make a Shikai here. Of course, I was hoping to keep Carthy behind, and even losing around 1'30" today would probably have been enough - but now he gets that unexpected 2nd place in GC. Well, I guess he deserves that with the risky move - had the break been caught at the foot of the last climb, it could've backfired pretty hard.
It wasn't a great stage for Stüssi, in particular losing time to Choi sucks. That 19" gap leaves him with a 50:50 chance to get the position back in the final TT. But I don't want to speculate about that stage yet, as I expect another massive breakaway tomorrow (Formolo should be in there for sure to secure the KoM win), so a lot could still happen. So it's too early to draw any final conclusions - although I'm already pretty sure that I'll be happy with our outcome.
Congrats to bbl on a huge win (and GC result), and to Herklotz for holding onto the lead. I guess that jersey should be safe by now, unless all other teams ride against him tomorrow.
Thanks for the report.
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ryant |
Posted on 09-01-2025 16:13
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Feels like thats another big reason to regret selling Carthy 
Huge performance there to take the stage, KOM and I suspect 2nd overall as I assume he has the gap needed on the rest of the contenders to keep his position after the 50km TT...
Nice to see from a former rider though I have to say. Williams obviously not strong enough in the end to mount a serious KOM challenge but I will still praise the attempt to get in the breaks.
John St Ledger in Team Bunzl-Centrica and Team U25
Red Bull Driver in RFactor
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SotD |
Posted on 09-01-2025 17:27
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This game really is not good. The other day it was Hirt, now Carthy.
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Luis Leon Sanchez |
Posted on 09-01-2025 17:45
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This game is a mess
There's just no way 4th in the GC should be allowed in a breakaway + if allowed for the gap to be that big.
Choi with a fairly good stage himself but it'll be a battle to hold onto that 5th with Stüssi uncomfortably close (shouldn't be that close to him either) and Eastman surprisingly low in the GC but I'd expect should go past them both. If he can hold onto 6th, that'd be a big result.
Conci also in a position to move up a place or 2 with a good TT. Let's see what he can do!
Congrats to bbl on the Carthy stage win, what should be 2nd in the GC, plus the KOM.
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alexkr00 |
Posted on 09-01-2025 17:57
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Wasn't expecting that meltdown from Formolo. He should have been able to follow that group and get a few extra KoM points. I still hope he gets it tomorrow, losing it on the same amount of points would be heartbreaking.
What a ride by Carthy though. There's something about Giro and these breakaways.
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ember |
Posted on 09-01-2025 20:48
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Thank you for the report, kb!
Monster ride by AHJ! Super happy to see him in the breakaway, and then to be that competitive against such opposition, especially like Carthy, Formolo and Foss is very encouraging for the role I hope he will have in our team. To come away from such a stage with 3rd place is great, very happy!
Agree with all others that it was weird to see such a high GC rider in Carthy given the green light to take a lot of time. Thought we were heading for a Shikai v2 thing for a very long time Big congratulations on the massive, crazy result, bbl! What a points haul that was as well for Carthy.
Don't have the DB in front of me, but cool to see Latour get a big gap among the favourites. Surely his TT is good enough to secure the final podium place, or is that me misremembering his TT stat badly? |
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Posted on 09-02-2025 01:44
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Fabianski |
Posted on 09-01-2025 21:16
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ember wrote:
Don't have the DB in front of me, but cool to see Latour get a big gap among the favourites. Surely his TT is good enough to secure the final podium place, or is that me misremembering his TT stat badly?
If everyone has more or less the same daily form, Latour should be safe (unless something crazy happens tomorrow, which I wouldn't even fully exclude tbh). He's a tad better in TTs than Olivier, so unless he has -2 daily form and Olivier +2, half a minute should be fine. Eastman with +7 TT is 3 minutes down - in Praha, we did have similar gaps, but given that the GC riders should all or less have the same weather conditions here, this would also need a special daily form constellation for Latour to lose it. But it's not excluded - whereas Herklotz and Carthy are definitely safe if the gaps are the same after S20.
Luis Leon Sanchez wrote:
Choi with a fairly good stage himself but it'll be a battle to hold onto that 5th with Stüssi uncomfortably close (shouldn't be that close to him either)
With Choi and Stüssi, it's pretty much the situation I expected. I was hoping to gain a little more time in the TTT, and then expected Stüssi not to lose much in the few real mountain stages we had (being only one stat point lower). I guess it might be just the bonus seconds Choi got with his one 3rd place that could make the difference in the end.
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cio93 |
Posted on 09-01-2025 21:17
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That was intense and exhausting to follow! Great job reporting on the action, kb!
I think bbl deserves all the good luck in the world, so I'm happy to see Carlsberg end up being the lottery winner this year, however obviously I do have to extend my sympathies to all the teams who lose out on having two podium spots left to battle for now (final flat stage shenanigans pending of course). 
Thanks to Silvio's late charge, he's now also 50 points ahead of Lutsenko in the ciclamino fight, so I assume that has to be secured by now unless Alex contests the intermediate sprint on top of a stage victory.
Full focus on tomorrow's breakaway attempts so nobody sneaks away again!
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tastasol |
Posted on 09-01-2025 22:49
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Big, big ride by Carthy. Congrats on a great stage win, bbl! Surprising to see him get such a big gap, I don't think Puma was in total control there.
Good performances from Vingegaard and Roman. Good to see them showing their highest level so far in the end here. Hopefully Vingegaard can manage to keep himself in that top 20 in GC as well.
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baseballlover312 |
Posted on 10-01-2025 00:50
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Well, well, well. Wow. All the complaining I did from stage 1, we end up being the luckiest team in the race by far. My complaints continue to will results into existence. 
I joked and joked about pulling a Shikai here from the very beginning, but I certainly didn't expect to actually do it after rising to 4th place on GC. There's really no way or reason that they should have let Carthy go in that position. But they did, and never really chased. Very silly AI to say the least. But after Galta crashed out of the podium fight from similar attacks last year, I guess it's nice to get the benefit of it. Plus, the fact that we were already in 4th means we didn't screw over quite as many other teams, and Herklotz still deservedly gets his GT.
And for one moment, I'll try to step back and enjoy it as a cycling performance. It really was a career defining performance for Hugh Carthy, who was a big signing we overpaid to get in the offseason. We sent several guys in a huge break and pushed as hard as we could, and he went alone very early on such a difficult stage. Truly a brave and memorable effort that will go down in the history of our team, even if it's kind of sour cause it arose from strange AI. it could save our season, save our PT spot, and be a definitive moment in our history.
Looking at the GC now, we've obviously built a huge buffer to 3rd place, but it's not insurmountable given how rough Carthy is in the TT. Luckily the guys immediately behind us are not the strong TT guys, so without a terrible daily form day, I think we hold on. Nothing is a given though! Even the flat stage could have shake-ups. It was also great to tie for the KOM jersey for the time being. We'll probably lose it in the end, but Carthy gets a jersey for the day I'm sure. Makes up for our lost depth in recent days, which I obviously couldn't care less about.
Thank you all for the congrats and thanks to kandes for keeping these amazing reports going!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
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Ulrich Ulriksen |
Posted on 10-01-2025 02:48
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Not sure we can call out the AI here. Very tough start, fast, generally downhill, very chaotic, Carthy slips into the break with two good GC-type domestiques and a bunch of other strong guys willing to work. You probably have at least 10 riders working and these are the strong men in the break 19 stages in. Puma isn't as strong as the break, they are barely able to contain the gap and others don't want to help or can't. Still the gap is only 5'50 going into the penultimate climb which is 1 of 2 huge climbs. IRL the super doms to come to the front and the break would be done by the base of the final climb.
But in the mangame the talent is spread evenly and it isn't point-smart to send super domestiques. So you get on the climb and it is mostly team leaders left and nobody would want to work. Herklotz doesn't want to go too early and blow up. So Carthy's lead grows while they wait for someone to take the initiative.
Last year (in the TDS I think), Shikai rode in support of Bernal and he tore the race apart. If he is riding for Heklotz the outcome here is different.
Maybe a lucky results for Carlsberg. Other top GC teams should have done more. But not sure it was completely unrealistic given the structure of the peloton. Also it was a high risk strategy as some have noted, on another day it goes badly and he loses tons of time. So congrats to Bbl that it worked this time.
Thanks to KB for the reports.
Man Game: McCormick Pro Cycling
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alexkr00 |
Posted on 10-01-2025 18:16
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Some will say the game is bad because of the sprints, some will say it's because of the odd GT breakaways. I'll say it's bad because Formolo didn't even try today to get the jersey thay was right under his nose.
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knockout |
Posted on 10-01-2025 18:27
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Not too happy about this stage. Van Niekerk is a terrible sprinter which make him a bad break option and Aleotti overtaking Plapp hurts a lot. Prado overtaking Bellan is also not completely ideal either. Would have rather seen either a better break option by us like Eekhoff or Baroncini or a mass sprint with an outside shot at a Sureda result.
Congrats dd. Sick race for you!
A Big Thank You To All MG Reporters!
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tastasol |
Posted on 10-01-2025 18:43
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Would have liked to be in the break, but we've been in many breaks lately, so can't be too disappointed. A pity that Trondsen did so well in the sprint behind, of course. The late stages was always going to be his best opportunities given his recovery, but oh well.
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Bikex |
Posted on 10-01-2025 18:58
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A shame we didn't get into the break in either of the last two stages. Chaiyasombat at least made it into the top 20 of the GC, but lost out on the white jersey because Leknessund did go into the break, so he secures it despite being weaker in the last mountain stages. Well congrats on that success, dd, as well as another stage win! |
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