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Giro d'Italia 2021 Giro d'Italia, Stage 4: Piacenza - Sestola 186 km

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Poll?

  • Yes

    Votes: 37 53.6%
  • No

    Votes: 32 46.4%

  • Total voters
    69
  • Poll closed .
Yeah I just don't get why a lot of teams would bother with trying to get pink on this stage. Seems like the right call on this one is to conserve and defend. I'm hugely rooting for Evenepoel and as such I don't want to see them defending pink for almost 3 weeks.

If I'm DQS I would not help pull back a break for the bulk of the stage, and I would not burn any extra matches other than to not lose any GC time. Ineos seems like they are more willing, experienced, and under more obligation to hang onto Pink. Let them chase.
Or just put a guy in the break, either Honore or Knox. I'm guessing Honore.
 
Großschartner lost 9:36 yesterday and, normally, he really likes bad weather...wouldn't surprise me to see Felix in a break and stay up front.

And Buchmann should be able to manage today without Großschartner
It’s unlikely he saved that much energy yesterday as he will have been working on the front as part of the Bora efforts to control the breakaway group.
 
It's always good to see the Ligurian Alps included in the Giro. I think the GC guys will stay together until the final climb, but that one is steep. It will be a first test for the climbers. No big differences, but it will give a first idea who has the legs to do something uphill. Evenepoel has a realistic chance to take pink, but anyone within half a minute has a chance.

One question is whether Ineos will bother to defend the pink, knowing that Ganna will probably lose it anyway. (That's not certain, but I think the final climb is to steep for him.) A breakaway might succeed, bringing a complete outsider in pink (and perhaps keep it for the next ten days).
 
Break is a bit tricky as whilst theres some guys I'm expecting to try and get in the break that are 10 mins or so down (Goosens, De Gendt, Carr, Tratnik, Visconti), they're all so far down that you'd be surprised to see them in pink and will the main teams allow someone decent at less than 2 mins disappear down the road (guys lik Rochas, Reichenbach, Hirt etc)
 

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