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Giro d'Italia 2022 Giro d'Italia, Stage 1: Budapest – Visegrád 195 km (Friday, May 6th)

From @Eshnar's excellent 2022 Giro d'Italia: Stage-by-stage Analysis thread:https://forum.cyclingnews.com/threads/2022-giro-ditalia-stage-by-stage-analysis.37819/post-2691557

Stage 1: Budapest – Visegrád 195 km
Friday, May 6th, 12:20 CET


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Technical Overview:
The Grande Partenza of 2022 starts with an unusual road stage. From Budapest, the peloton will go through a wide clockwise loop on mostly flat terrain, with the two intermediate sprints as the only focal points. Upon reaching the Danube, the riders will follow it until the town of Visegrád, where the final stretch of road begins. The finishing line is located all the way up, at the Royal Palace. The road to get there is the first categorized climb of this Giro, Visegrád (GPM4, 5.6km at 4.2%), a steady climb that should not produce gaps among the favourites, but will definitely favour the puncheurs and provide a worthy first Maglia Rosa.

Final Kms:

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The Climbs:

Visegrád
: GPM4, 5.6km at 4.2%
A very simple uphill finish that should be just enough to make things interesting for the first Maglia Rosa battle. The profile is in the Final km section.

What to expect:
A puncheur to win, maybe even with a couple seconds gap. No GC relevant gaps, excluding possible crashes, of course.

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Visegrád Castle
 
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Quite similar and not much harder than Poggio. If he has his climbing legs back I think Ewan will be hard to beat for MVDP and Girmay here.
Getting over a climb is different to winning at the top of it. Admittedly, he did crest the Poggio in like 4th position in 2021 but I think he'll need a lot of contenders to look at each other instead of making a move in order to win this. If he would have a Quickstep 2021 leadout I could see it but I think he'll get swallowed in the leadup by all the puncheurs.
 
The sprint is still significantly uphill. Ewan will not be a match

An uphill sprint is not a problem for Ewan at all. He loves them. But I really doubt he will be able to follow the whole climb. He definitely didn't have his best climbing legs in Turkey. And even if he has a really good day, with LTS keeping their best guys out of the Giro to score points and De Buyst being injured he won't have teammates there anymore (apart from maybe Moniquet). He is going to need to be incredibly good and lucky to win this.
 
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The sprint is still significantly uphill. Ewan will not be a match

I dont think those percentages are a problem at all, remember the stage in 2019 where Carapaz won by a soloattack but where Ewan were clearly the strongest and fastest. That climb was shorter though (with the rest of the stage harder) so it could be too long, but then again its not much worse than Poggio where he would be the favourite to win on top if in topform. But Its definetly a big risk that his form is not good enough at the moment after his problems and he would need to be in his best climbingform to win. We must see.
 
I dont think those percentages are a problem at all, remember the stage in 2019 where Carapaz won by a soloattack but where Ewan were clearly the strongest and fastest. That climb was shorter though (with the rest of the stage harder) so it could be too long, but then again its not much worse than Poggio where he would be the favourite to win on top if in topform. But Its definetly a big risk that his form is not good enough at the moment after his problems and he would need to be in his best climbingform to win. We must see.
There were many strong riders out of contention that day because of crashes in the final kms
 
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