2012 Giro d'Italia, May 9th, stage 4: Verona → Verona, 33.2 Kms TTT

[DominicDecoco]

1 minute would be fun

Every team to start at the same time. Now that..!

 

[The Hitch]

Vuelta a España, Stage 1 : Benidorm - Benidorm T.T.T. (13.5 km)
Tour de France, Stage 2 : Les Essarts - Les Essarts T.T.T. (23 km)
Giro d'Italia, Stage 1 : Venaria Reale - Torino T.T.T. (21.5 km)
Tirreno - Adriatico, Stage 1 : Marina di Carrara T.T.T. (16.8 km)
Tirreno - Adriatico, Stage 1 : Marina di Carrara T.T.T. (16.8 km)
Tirreno - Adriatico, Stage 1 : San Vincenzo - Donoratico T.T.T. (16.9 km)

Yes considering that there have been all these TTTs before the last one.

No that is not a while.

Oh and 16km in a 1 week race with 3 hill finishes, is a very long ttt.

I dont understand these points at all.

You said they made it a ttt because they dont like long itts. I ask you to explain that. What is so harmful about a itt that they choose a ttt instead.

As for the frank point, you said its up to debate how much input individual gc riders have in a ttt. The fact that a **** poor tter like Frank puts time into 1 of the absolute best gt tters like Contador, shows that the answer is, very little.

 

[Swede1]

Yeah Garmin is probably the safe bet for the win. Greenedge and sky should both be up there and liquigas always does well in the giro ttt so they should be a good bet for top 5. But I have to go with garmin. also, i hope phinney keeps the lead in the ttt even though it seems doubtful.

 

[Froome19]

20km is more than enough head start to give some riders. why dont we just ban riders on weaker teams from starting the Giro, at least they wont go through the pain of actually riding it.


Oh and 16km in a 1 week race with 3 hill finishes, is a very long ttt.
.

I have never advocated TTT and in fact their usage at least in GTs I strongly oppose.

Indeed 16km in a 1 week race is long for a TTT but in essence it is not a long TTT is it?
and of course my point was based on team's perfomances in TTT over 30km so a 16km TTT has no relevance

You said they made it a ttt because they dont like long itts. I ask you to explain that. What is so harmful about a itt that they choose a ttt instead.
.

Dont know but generally the Giro organisers seem to be more hesitant to put in more ITT km, for possibly a number of reasons.
I would say they chose a TTT as it does not necessarily penalise weak Time trialists but more importantly because it is a better spectacle to view and as it is a change from a normal ITT.

As for the frank point, you said its up to debate how much input individual gc riders have in a ttt. The fact that a **** poor tter like Frank puts time into 1 of the absolute best gt tters like Contador, shows that the answer is, very little.

Oh I understand now, yeh indeed I do not believe that individuals have that much effect in the overall TTT perfomance, as shown by Liquigas's perfomances over the years whereas they have no stand out TT.

Yet BMC at the tour seemed to be dragged by Evans yet in defiance of popular belief ,I believe that the majority of that perfomance was actually down to team work rather than Evans.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

Frank Schleck taking half a minute on Contador puts an end to that debate.

I don't think the usual complaints about TTTs necessarily apply to tomorrow.

Hesjedal will probably get some time, but he's a somewhat marginal GC challenger and judging by his prologue form he'd probably get some time if it was an ITT anyway. Pozzovivo, Nieve and Gadret are likely to lose a lot of time, but again, they would be expected to do that in an ITT.

Lampre are likely to lose time on Liquigas but (a) Scarponi and Cunego were terrible in the opening ITT all on their own and (b) it isn't as if Basso is surrounded by ace time triallists - they just have a tradition of doing well in TTTs by putting the work in and being well drilled. That's not really the same thing as having Cancellara drag the Schlecks into a lead over Contador.

Unlike a Tour TTT, this TTT is likely to produce results amongst the GC contenders which would be quite believable for an ITT. There's no equivalent to a Samuel Sanchez getting crucified because his team can't time trial.

 

[blaxland]

1st=Greenedge
2nd=Garmin
3rd=Bmc
should be close between these three teams with Liquigas also a close forth

 

[mewmewmew13]

I'm voting Liqui

 

[Random Direction]

I'll stick with my earlier analysis

Since the below was written presumptive of boredom from Stage 3 (which I couldn't watch), a few things points were raised and a few riders (Phinney and Cavendish most brutally) were introduced to the tarmac by a deviating Maserati.

I'll stand by why I wrote but put a huge risk point on BMC if Phinney can't apply full power.

For the fun of it, the substantive points raised by experts were:
(1) Liquigas is really drilled in TTT
(2) some 5/6th riders weren't going full out
(3) Lampre may be under-rated.
(4) Phinney likes tarmac
(5) Hermans and one or two others on RNT have been sick

If these are true, then one would expect Garmin to be closer to RNT and the others (5/6th on Garmin were clearly going hard in the Prologue), Liquigas to move up a few spots, Lampre to be maybe 30s faster, BMC to drop back a few spots, etc. All of this is consists of perceptions. The question is do the perceptions (some of which might be biased one way or the other by the poster, of course) better model reality or do the numbers? Many an expert has been wrong, a few are right, but the bookie generally makes money all of the time.

-------------------------------------------
Originally Posted by Random Direction
(posting this before stage 3 which likely bore me)

(warning - technical analysis)

The prologue gives us a good proxy on which to base TTT results for stage four. Taking the total time for the top 6 finishers from each team from the prologue, we can judge the relative (excluding team dynamics) strength of each Giro team in time trials. Using the % difference from the top team, and a 52 km / hour proxy for the top team in the 33.2 km TTT we can then guess the times for each team in the TTT. From this, we can then guess the relative time of each GC contender after the TTT. It will, of course, be wrong, however if betting were allowed where I am, I'd wager a few dollars.

There could be some big time gaps and some contenders quite far back after only four stages. This might lead to some good mountain fireworks as people try to isolate riders and put in some fireworks.

Prologue Place.Team:Time: % behind top: TTT time: TTT Behind: GC Behind (GC Name)

1. GRM: 3912s: 1.000%: 38:18: 0s: +0s (Hesjedal)
2. RNT: 3974s: 1.016%: 38: 55: +36: +66s (Schleck)
3. OGE: 3983s: 1.018%: 39:00: +42s
4. SKY: 3984s: 1.018%: 39:01: +42: +59s (Uran) + 76s (Henao)
5. BMC: 3991s: 1.020%: 39:05: +46s: +41s (Pinotti)
6. OPQ: 3998s: 1.022%: 39:09: +51s
7. LIQ: 4002s: 1.023%: 39:11: +53s: +92s (Basso) + 112 (Szmyd)
8. VCD: 4022s: 1.028%: 39:23: +65s +68s (De Gendt)
9. MOV: 4031s: 1.030%: 39:28: +70s
10. SAX: 4033s: 1.031%: 39:30: +71s
11. RAB: 4036s: 1.032%: 39:31: +73s
12. APP: 4043s: 1.033%: 39:35: +77s
13. AST: 4044s: 1.034%: 39:36: +78s: +85s (Kreuziger)
14. KAT: 4062s: 1.038% 39:47: +88s: +102s (Rodriguez)
15. LTB: 4065s: 1.039%: 39:48: +90s
16. COG: 4082s: 1.043%: 39:58: +102s
17. FDJ: 4090s: 1.046%: 40:03: +107s
18. FAR: 4106s: 1.050%: 40:12: +114s
19. LAM: 4116s: 1.052%: 40:18: +120s: +154s (Cunego) +156s (Scarponi)
20. AND: 4125s: 1.054%: 40:24: +125s: +159s (Serpa) +163s (Rujano)
21. ALM: 4184s: 1.070%: 40:58: +160s: +183s (Gadret)
22. EUS: 4199s: 1.073s%: 41:07: +169s: +195s (Nieve)

(projection will change if riders crash and withdraw - Kristoff and Serpa haven't been removed from calculations yet)

 

[The Hitch]

I don't think the usual complaints about TTTs necessarily apply to tomorrow.

Hesjedal will probably get some time, but he's a somewhat marginal GC challenger and judging by his prologue form he'd probably get some time if it was an ITT anyway. Pozzovivo, Nieve and Gadret are likely to lose a lot of time, but again, they would be expected to do that in an ITT.

Lampre are likely to lose time on Liquigas but (a) Scarponi and Cunego were terrible in the opening ITT all on their own and (b) it isn't as if Basso is surrounded by ace time triallists - they just have a tradition of doing well in TTTs by putting the work in and being well drilled. That's not really the same thing as having Cancellara drag the Schlecks into a lead over Contador.

Unlike a Tour TTT, this TTT is likely to produce results amongst the GC contenders which would be quite believable for an ITT. There's no equivalent to a Samuel Sanchez getting crucified because his team can't time trial.

You are right, or rather you probably will turn out to be right, though in my eyes the an itt would still, even here, be significantly better.

 

[djconnel]

The question is do the perceptions (some of which might be biased one way or the other by the poster, of course) better model reality or do the numbers?

I love the analysis. However, it could be tested against historical data. Simply find all examples where the TTT followed a prologue time trial, then calculate correlation coefficients between the placing of the team and the placing of the first, second, .... lowest placed rider for that team in the prologue. This will yield the optimal weights for each of these ranking positions in predicting the result of the TTT. The key metric is what fraction of the randomness (variance) of the result is reduced by the model.

Worst case is the prologue results have no relationship to the TTT result, and you can do as well by picking teams at random. Or perhaps you could just rank the teams in the UCI team ranking and that would work better. But I suspect the prologue results do better.

As to whether other factors come into play, like how well drilled the team is, analytically that gets tougher.

 

[Random Direction]

djconnel - of course using historical datasets, multiple variables, etc would make the analysis much better. All I did was copy the results into a spreadsheet and punch out a simple envelope calculation in a stream of conciousness. If you know of a couple of precedent prologue / TTT combinations in competitive fields that I could use to do some weighting, let me know - might be able to do some further analysis tonight.

 

[Michele]

Yesterday evening I did the whole route by car and the central part is very tricky for a TTT event and there are 2 very dangerous corners with one of them right at the end of a steep downhill.

 

[greenedge]

Phinney will hopefully not crash anywhere near there then.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

Garmin should win. No idea why I picked Sky in a fantasy game, poor form.

Im being realistic. I only say a BMC rider can win when I actually think so like in the giro prologue.

which is basically every other time then now
pretty sure realistic isn't in your vocab

Indeed 16km in a 1 week race is long for a TTT but in essence it is not a long TTT is it?

like usual you lack the ability to understand context.

 

[thegrimpeur]

It should be noted that Cunego and Scarponi did not ride in Romandie, something that could have caused the sub-par prologue compared to Basso and Kreuziger. I think they should be fine by now, but I still fear that they will be 2 minutes ++ down on the best GC contender after todays stage.

Anyway, I still like the TTT, cycling is a team sport and this keeps that aspect for all to see. And its not like the climbers don't stand a chance, they get 6 months or so to drill the TTT, just sign a couple of decent rouleurs, make the giro a target for the whole team and stop whining.

 

[cineteq]

Garmin should easily win this, followed by Liquigas and Greenedge.
Dark horse: RSNT
BMC will be middle of the pack as Phinney won't be able to fully help
I fear for Lampre

 

[Pippo_San]

That's the winners!

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

The losers

 

[hatcher]

Looking forward to this.

If Bobridge has found his legs, then GE would be my pick. Closely followed by Garmin, and BMC depending on Phinney's health. Basically the 3 teams who won't be worried about their GC guys.

Think Liquigas, for all their team smoothness, won't challenge in this one. Missing a bit of pure speed.

Would like Sky's chances more if I knew they weren't worried about Henao, and if they still had Swift. Similarly Radioshack and Schleck.

 

[theyoungest]

The losers

Mark Renshaw, in his infinite wisdom, expects them to come top-6. Yeah, right.

 

[Jan the Man]

1. Garmin
2. Green Edge
3. Liquigas
4. Sky
5. BMC
6. Rabobank
7. RSNT
8. Saxo Bank
9. Vacansoleil
10. Team Net App
11. Lampre
12. Astana
13. Farnese Vini
14. Omega Pharma
15. Katusha
16. Androni-Venezuela
17. Movistar
18. Lotto
19. Colnago
20. FDJ
21. AG2R
22. Eueskatel

 

[cineteq]

The losers

RED ALERT, Ryo has hacked into DT's account

 

[Dekker_Tifosi]

Mark Renshaw, in his infinite wisdom, expects them to come top-6. Yeah, right.

lol, i wonder how he expects that actually. I mean even with a totally fit team that would be above expectations. Garate, Slagter are climbers obviously, so not going to contribute much. Van Winden, Bos, Clement, Renshaw, Brown and Leezer and Niermann are the rest. And while some of them are usefull TTT extra's, none of them are special. And now van Winden and Bos are injured as well.

Even top 10 would be a stretch

 

[vcampbell]

That's the winners!

 

[luckyboy]

Hope Androni don't lose too much. 12th last year.
Garmin win obviously.

Hopefully something interesting happens today.