Squire said:
Oude Geuze said:
I think people are underestimating the gaps here, it’s Nibali vs Roglic bar any accidents. I’m rooting for both about equally, but looking forward to the fight! Yates is out, not even in the extreme form of last year did he put minutes into top contenders in one stage.
I agree. The only one you can remotely imagine being capable of bringing back minutes in the mountains is Lopez (and perhaps the mythical version of Landa that we haven't really seen), and even that is hard to see happening now.
That is, of course, assuming Roglic (and Nibali) doesn't crack big time. Which, considering it's the Giro after all, is quite possible.
This and this. What happened on stage 19 last year isn't something that normally happens, and Chris Froome is not in the race. The great thing for Roglic is that he only really needs to watch one man: Nibali. And even then, he doesn't have to keep him on the tightest leash necessarily. Roglic can race reasonably conservatively, and as long as he remains reasonably strong, he will be hard to beat, even if he isn't the strongest climber. These other guys are HUGE time behind. Say Lopez goes up the road early on stage 14, and is crazy strong, gains five minutes and moves into Pink. As unlikley as that already is, he would probably pay for that attack on stage 15, or during week three. Anyone outside of Nibali is either going to have to have a crazy almost Landis like stage somewhere (and still stay consistent on the other stages), or be very, very strong on multiple mountain stages. Sure, we don't know exactly what climbing legs Roglic and Nibali have in this race, but we can be fairly certain that they will both be able to climb to at least a reasonable level (based on their career history, and even recent climbing in stage race Giro lead ups).
Therefore it seems very unlikely for someone other than Roglic and Nibali to win this Giro at this point, without them having a bad crash or a really bad day at the worst time.