2013 Giro D'Italia Field Discussion

[will10]

Hitch said you were deluded, not me.

 

[Cavendash]

Gesink did have an injury free prep for once. Only in PN he has gotten ill (which is also why he performed badly), then after only 2 good training rides and a lot of rest he still got 6th at Catalunya.

He said today in an interview that a podium is his goal. Main question with Gesink is if he stays injury free for 3 weeks and doesn't lose time in stages you don't expect it. Only then is podium a possibility, there is no room for ****ups in a GT

 

[Jelantik]

Very interesting analysis of wiggin and nibali throughout the thread.. But I would really like to wait and see how nibali will fair with wiggin on the up coming giro del trentino. Rumors said Sky is bringing their giro team. Nibali and wiggin should be close to their giro form. Let's see, does nibali can hang with wiggin in the mountain or take some time? if he can't do it in one week race, then maybe giro parcours is specially designed for wiggin to loose.. (I hope not).

 

[MatParker117]

Very interesting analysis of wiggin and nibali throughout the thread.. But I would really like to wait and see how nibali will fair with wiggin on the up coming giro del trentino. Rumors said Sky is bringing their giro team. Nibali and wiggin should be close to their giro form. Let's see, does nibali can hang with wiggin in the mountain or take some time? if he can't do it in one week race, then maybe giro parcours is specially designed for wiggin to loose.. (I hope not).

Sky Squad:

Dario Cataldo, Joe Dombrowski, Peter Kennaugh, Christian Knees, Danny Pate, Kanstantsin Siutsou, Bradley Wiggins, Xabier Zandio

Henao, Uran & Kiryienka are apparently doing the Giro but are in the Ardennes this week.

 

[Afrank]

I think he means that it's not certain that Wiggins will have the same shape as in 2012. It wouldn't surprise me that after the best year of his carreer he is a little less focussed or maybe worked a little less in the winter. If Wiggins has his Tour-shape, it's going to be a boring race.

This; this combined with the different parcours of the Giro, Nibali continually improving, and Nibali's new team, is why I personally voted for Nibbles in the poll.
+, like Ebandit said, I'm optimistic Nibali can beat Wiggins.

Although to be honest the way Sky have been performing this season has me slightly more unsure if Nibali will be able to pull it off. But then again, we haven't seen any really great performances by Wiggins this year yet. And so far Nibali is looking pretty good.

 

[Gingerale]

Nibali's year!

 

[movingtarget]

This; this combined with the different parcours of the Giro, Nibali continually improving, and Nibali's new team, is why I personally voted for Nibbles in the poll.
+, like Ebandit said, I'm optimistic Nibali can beat Wiggins.

Although to be honest the way Sky have been performing this season has me slightly more unsure if Nibali will be able to pull it off. But then again, we haven't seen any really great performances by Wiggins this year yet. And so far Nibali is looking pretty good.

If Wiggins has his Tour form he will win but how often do we see riders do the same preparation, the same training and just not reproduce their previous performances. Wiggins has had a different schedule this year because of the Giro but Nibali will be hoping to see a few signs that Wiggins is not performing as well as before. That said, I think his rides this year have been solid but I think Nibali has also showed improvement. Looks like an entertaining Giro coming up.

 

[wwabbit]

Sky Squad:

Dario Cataldo, Joe Dombrowski, Peter Kennaugh, Christian Knees, Danny Pate, Kanstantsin Siutsou, Bradley Wiggins, Xabier Zandio

Henao, Uran & Kiryienka are apparently doing the Giro but are in the Ardennes this week.

That's the Giro del Trentino startlist, not the Giro d'Italia startlist.

 

[xrayvision]

I soooo hate to say this, but Wiggins and rest of the BORGS will dominate this, to believe Wiggins will not be in GC shape is just and utterly wishful thinking.

Can only hope Astana are smart enough to team up with a couple of the other contenders like Katusha and Moviestar, otherwise its game over!

 

[Pentacycle]

there was no proper hilly stage in PN 2011, besides that is a different wiggins

But it's still the last time where Wiggins had to deal with some hills in the final of a race, where he was fighting for the GC podium.

Or shouldn't I be mentioning the terrible, terrible PN race?

 

[wwabbit]

Before the start of the season, I think most would agree that Wiggins will easily do better than Nibali. However the results of Tirreno-Adriatico and Catalunya made too many people believe that the tide has changed and the results now favour Nibali.

Personally, I think that we haven't seen enough of the two this season to call it one way or the other. Winning Tirreno-Adriatico was a good result, but it was a result of one brilliant stage masking indifferent results in the two prior stage. While Nibali did great on Stage 3 to finish in front of everyone but Froome and Santambrogia, it wouldn't be too hard to imagine that if it were Wiggins instead of Froome sitting behind Uran, Wiggins would have made the bridge like Froome did before sitting on Nibali's wheel the rest of the way. On Stage 4, Nibali cracked behind all his rivals, showing that he can be inconsistent too.

Volta a Catalunya stages 3 and 4 I think shows what Wiggins can do with and without his train. With his train, he was able to match the likes of Rodriguez and Valverde - riders that are arguably at least as good as Nibali at climbing. Without his train, Wiggins cracked badly on stage 4. The good news for Wiggins is that the circumstances that led to his train being burnt by the final climb is unlikely to happen in the Giro.

All in all, I think Wiggins still has a slight edge over Nibali, too small to really call it for Wiggins with any significant amount of certainty, because Nibali can still beat him if a combination of some of the following things happen:

1. Wiggin's TT form for this season is still a question mark as we haven't seen him TT at all. Could he be completely out of form? Even out of form, it is still hard to see him losing to Nibali in the TTs.
2. Can Nibali make several repeats of Tirreno-Adriatico stage 5? I don't think there are enough stages like that in the Giro to make a significant difference.
3. Can Wiggins be isolated from his train? Possible, but I think it is harder to achieve this in a Grand Tour than in a normal stage race, with the extra rider and the vastly reduced necessity to chase down breaks.
4. Can Nibali put in a few explosive bursts at the end of a climb to put time into Wiggins? It's possible but IMO, results show that he isn't that kind of climber.

 

[maxmartin]

Very interesting analysis of wiggin and nibali throughout the thread.. But I would really like to wait and see how nibali will fair with wiggin on the up coming giro del trentino. Rumors said Sky is bringing their giro team. Nibali and wiggin should be close to their giro form. Let's see, does nibali can hang with wiggin in the mountain or take some time? if he can't do it in one week race, then maybe giro parcours is specially designed for wiggin to loose.. (I hope not).

Not going to happen, nibali always soft pedal just before gt. He probably will race trentino the same way he raced dauphine last year. Besides lbl is also on the table.

 

[Woody22]

A Woody Whisper:

Word around the peloton is that Cadel has rediscovered his top form and will be a real force to be reckoned with in the Giro.

You heard it here first.

 

[maxmartin]

A Woody Whisper:

Word around the peloton is that Cadel has rediscovered his top form and will be a real force to be reckoned with in the Giro.

You heard it here first.

Keep dreaming

 

[theyoungest]

A Woody Whisper:

Word around the peloton is that Cadel has rediscovered his top form and will be a real force to be reckoned with in the Giro.

You heard it here first.

Word around Aussie fanboy world, more likely.

Evans could still be okay, he's not a natural climber and always struggles on the long climbs in the early season. But he's struggled everywhere, that's worrying.

 

[Ferminal]

The whole reason for doing the Giro is that it's the only way he can improve (or at least he's not going to be worse off doing it). If he was already in a position to compete for a GC win he would be focusing solely on the Tour. Either that or he's another Froome ducker.

 

[will10]

A Woody Whisper:

Word around the peloton is that Cadel has rediscovered his top form and will be a real force to be reckoned with in the Giro.

You heard it here first.

Flying pigs spotted over Adelaide.

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

On Stage 4, Nibali cracked behind all his rivals, showing that he can be inconsistent too.

He's not inconsistent in one-week stage races, IMO.

All his rivals are more explosive than him (including Wiggins) which hurts him on short uphill finishes like that one, as well as on short climbs like PdBF.

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

55km hilly TT in the Giro? Menchov win is obvious



four years ago

 

[jens_attacks]

A Woody Whisper:

Word around the peloton is that Cadel has rediscovered his top form and will be a real force to be reckoned with in the Giro.

You heard it here first.

that wouldn't be a surprise at all. i expect a very strong cadel evans in this giro. same with ivan basso

 

[The Hitch]

55km hilly TT in the Giro? Menchov win is obvious



four years ago

I think that one was a little bit harder (;

 

[Maaaaaaaarten]

I think that one was a little bit harder (;

okay okay, then Menchov will win onl 1 minute on Wiggo this time, instead of 2 like he did in that TT.

 

[ILovecycling]

My point was that we dont know how Wiggins is going to perform this year,last year is last year,this is new season,new training,new motivation.
Lets wait for Trentino.

edit: sorry,i forgot to quote

 

[18-Valve. (pithy)]

But it's still the last time where Wiggins had to deal with some hills in the final of a race, where he was fighting for the GC podium.

Or shouldn't I be mentioning the terrible, terrible PN race?

Agreed, but Wiggins handles medium mountain stages a lot better than "proper" high mountain stages, IMO, so I don't know why this was brought up in the first place. The only way to beat Wiggins is in those high mountain stages, though I doubt Nibali is up to that task. I have more faith in Basso at this point.

 

[icefire]

A Woody Whisper:

Word around the peloton is that Cadel has rediscovered his top form and will be a real force to be reckoned with in the Giro.

You heard it here first.

Cadel's form 2 years after winning the Tour was first seen on Sastre 2010