2021 Giro d'Italia, Stage 19: Abbiategrasso - Alpe di Mera 166 km

[Sciatic]

Hating Simon Yates seems extremely weird to me. Do you have something against unpredictability or entertainment?

Those sunglasses?

 

[Eclipse]

From an entertainment point of view this stage rests on whether the lower down GC guys try to go on Colma

There's some interesting possibilities given Martin and Almeida appear to be among the strongest climbers right now.

Could definitely see them being given a bit of margin still if they wanted to gamble and in some ways trying shenanigans here is more likely to work than Saturday when every team knows they have nothing else to ride for

 

[VeloMaster]

Its mostly a media thing. As you know yourself a lot of our media in Ireland comes from Britain and the attitude to some of their athletes really puts me off them. Yates just being in a race means a whole day of Hatch wetting himself and talking about nothing else. The same man made me turn off last year I got so sick of the TGH love in
Similarly the borderline racism towards European athletes makes me cheer for them especially in soccer

In support of that, notice how often Hatch & Co stick to their preferred narrative -- Ineos and its star power, is the best example, among others -- all the while the time gaps are opening as non-Brit teams or riders start to leave them behind. Or replay the other day on Eurosport/GCN and see how little attention Almeida received during the broadcast or in post-race commentary, despite having climbed the final mountain faster than anyone else.

It does wear down the rest of us.

 

[Sciatic]

Since I've been on a good run this Giro I'm making one more prediction: if Yates goes all out tomorrow he won't win the Giro. He won't gain enough time on Bernal and Caruso to win it on a monoclimb stage after a sprint day. He needs to rip it apart on Saturday. And if he goes on the base of Alpe di Mera he's going to be too spent to do that.

IMHO the best case scenario for a great stage on Saturday is if DQS take it up for João tomorrow, and Bike Exchange saves all its bullets for a final showdown. Outside of that we might see Egan (or Damiano) go choo-choo all the way to Milan.

The thing about putting all the eggs in the Saturday basket is that the other teams really don’t know what the deal was with Bernal two days ago. So I would at least want to pressure him to see if more cracks show tomorrow. That will also help with preparing a strategy for Saturday. And what if the problem was a brief illness or even the back: does waiting till Sat to really attack him give him an extra day to recover a bit more? (I know no rider can recover very much at this point in a grand tour, maybe better to say he could still be weaker tomorrow).
So I would hope that any team that wants to try to exploit Bernal’s potential vulnerability—and has enough team left to do it—should at least make the race hard tomorrow, including the start of the final climb and then if Yates, or Caruso, or a longer shot has the legs to take more time in the 2nd half of the climb they can go for it.
In short, how can you make a good plan to attack Bernal on Sat if you don’t at least test him tomorrow?

 

[Mayomaniac]

Yates will try, this stage suits him more than stage 20 (at least in my humble opinion).

 

[Mayomaniac]

Yates will try, this stage suits him more than stage 20 (at least in my humble opinion).

 

[topcat]

Yates will try, this stage suits him more than stage 20 (at least in my humble opinion).

Not that humble. You posted it twice. Sounds like you're trying to hammer the point home.

 

[Red Rick]

It my rather arrogant estimation, Yates will try again indeed.

 

[Rollthedice]

Ineos will control the last climb as long as they can, Bernal is in defending mode. Yates has to attack since he is the only one who wants to take on Bernal. Caruso is a super happy man with three happy teammates. The others in top 10 will be active to improve their positions. Normally Bernal wins this Giro, unless he cracks spectacularly on Saturday, tomorrow he might lose 30-40 sec still about 3 minutes left for the last stage before the TT.

 

[Cookster15]

Basically we all want to see Yates strong enough to take a little more time back and get close enough for a big raid on Saturday.
Relies on Kangert and Nieve rolling back the years, but no harm in dreaming.

Speak for yourself. I'd like to see Bernal remind everyone that he just bonked and won't make the same mistake twice.

 

[Cookster15]

Ineos will control the last climb as long as they can, Bernal is in defending mode. Yates has to attack since he is the only one who wants to take on Bernal. Caruso is a super happy man with three happy teammates. The others in top 10 will be active to improve their positions. Normally Bernal wins this Giro, unless he cracks spectacularly on Saturday, tomorrow he might lose 30-40 sec still about 3 minutes left for the last stage before the TT.

It will depend how Bernal feels. If stage 17 he simply ran out of fuel, then he might feel as strong as he did on in the rest of this race leading up to Passo Giau. If you feel good you put time into rivals by riding to how you feel and don't need to be in defending mode.

 

[Rollthedice]

It will depend how Bernal feels. If stage 17 he simply ran out of fuel, then he might feel as strong as he did on in the rest of this race leading up to Passo Giau. If you feel good you put time into rivals by riding to how you feel and don't need to be in defending mode.

"I'll have to know how to manage the last days of the race" - Bernal underlined - 'Now I have a 3'30" lead over Yates, not bad for me. It would be a risk if he sprints at 3-5 km and I go after him, if then happens what happened yesterday it would be a mistake on my part. I have to race with my head and I must not make mistakes also for my teammates who are working for me and are sacrificing so much. If I win the Giro it will also be thanks to them."

"It's hard to know if I'm declining or if this is my best form. I want to arrive in Milan with this beautiful jersey on my shoulders. Yesterday was a bit of a bad day, but we all know that in cycling we all have days like that. Now I want to recover and do well to arrive with enough strength in my legs to face the final time trial".

 

[RedheadDane]

Ganna first from the peloton. I didn't know he was such a good sprinter.

Didn't realise you'd already watched stage 19.
Don't spoil it, time traveller.

 

[Poursuivant]

“If I have legs in both stages, I'm going to try something. We won't know until we get there, but it's going to be very difficult, ” said Simon Yates.

 

[Anderis]

Didn't realise you'd already watched stage 19.
Don't spoil it, time traveller.

Sorry. I can't time travel. I'm just from Neptune, thus we have a different time-zone here and it's 28th of May already here. But I'll try to avoid spoilers in the future.

 

[Lequack]

Almeida should win this stage.

 

[Salvarani]

If Bernal has to dig very deep again it could become a nightmare for him these last three days.

I dont know if the others should attack, attack and attack. Just use their teams to make this race super-hard in the next two days and it could be enough if he completely fades.

 

[carolina]

On the last DQS video Almeida said he rather have a stage win instead of finishing 7th-10th, so he will definitly go for it if he has good legs.

 

[Bonimenier]

Hopefully Almeida, Foss or Martin gets in the breakaway. I don't know if there is any team that would pace the peloton otherwise now that TBE lost their best guy next to Yates.

 

[Froome]

Almeida for the win, and for the fourth place.
#freealmeida.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Bernal did a recon of the final climb, no idea if that will help him in any way.

 

[carton]

The thing about putting all the eggs in the Saturday basket is that the other teams really don’t know what the deal was with Bernal two days ago. So I would at least want to pressure him to see if more cracks show tomorrow. That will also help with preparing a strategy for Saturday. And what if the problem was a brief illness or even the back: does waiting till Sat to really attack him give him an extra day to recover a bit more? (I know no rider can recover very much at this point in a grand tour, maybe better to say he could still be weaker tomorrow).
So I would hope that any team that wants to try to exploit Bernal’s potential vulnerability—and has enough team left to do it—should at least make the race hard tomorrow, including the start of the final climb and then if Yates, or Caruso, or a longer shot has the legs to take more time in the 2nd half of the climb they can go for it.
In short, how can you make a good plan to attack Bernal on Sat if you don’t at least test him tomorrow?

As was alluded to before, Yates needs to play some poker. There's gotta be someone -Martin, Almeida, maybe even Caruso- who wants to make tomorrow hard. For sure, if he has the legs, he needs to finish out those last 2 km, and spend someone on the approach to set it up. Because, maybe Bernal has really cracked. Or maybe Caruso has a jour sans. But it's not the day to go for the full english, methinks.

 

[Leinster]

On the last DQS video Almeida said he rather have a stage win instead of finishing 7th-10th, so he will definitly go for it if he has good legs.

He's 2'14 behind Bardet in 6th with a TT to come...

 

[Panda Claws]

Almeida should work for Knox imo.

 

[carolina]

He's 2'14 behind Bardet in 6th with a TT to come...

The video was filmed before yesterday's stage