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Giro d'Italia 33rd Giro d'Italia Donne, June 30th-July 10th, 2022

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Who will win the 2022 Giro Donne?

  • Annemiek van Vleuten

    Votes: 10 76.9%

  • Someone else (write your pick in a post)

    Votes: 3 23.1%
  • Total voters
    13
Samu Cuenca

Samu Cuenca

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Libertine Seguros said:
Balsamo wins it on the line, just ahead of Vos, by enough that Marty's confusion is not really warranted but close enough to be a tight one. Movistar hit the front way too early with only one rider ahead of Norsgaard, and she got boxed in and didn't look to have it, Kool surfed the right wheels to make it up to 3rd ahead of Kopecky.
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Great sprint by Vos, consodering her uncertain form. Theearly jump nearly worked. Luckily Balsamo was the fastest, cause her swerve across the road could have been dangerous otherwise. A shame she wasn't wearing the rainbow jersey though.

The Danish commentators initially thought Norsgaard had finished third, and it took one of them a while to realise she obviously wasn't a brunette in a DSM kit.
 
Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

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Two breakaway groups today, but the bunch under the pacing of Trek-Segafredo seems to have them under control, with 1'27 between the head of the race and the bunch at 19km to go. The head of the race group is mostly young riders on domestic teams, but we do have Katia Ragusa of Liv as a more proven and established rider. Aromitalia have two in the second group, but there is a BePink rider who is running interference as they have Hájková in the testa della corsa group. Mostly fairly inexperienced riders, the main exception is Lucía González of Bizkaia who has been around a decade or so. The pursuant group seems to be giving up the ghost and dropping back to the péloton however.

Olivia Baril is out of the race it seems, which is a shame, she has had a good season in climbing races.

Gruppo Compatto at 6km. BikeExchange and Jumbo competing over the front of the race, Trek quietly dropping away for the time being, expect to see them recoup a bit of strength and reappear to pilotfish Balsamo to the front later on. Brand and ELB are both lurking.

SD Worx hit the front at 3,5km with Cecchini and Majerus. Movistar appear with Annemiek van Vleuten (!) hitting the front at 3km, with Arlenis Sierra in her wheel but Norsgaard is nowhere to be seen, learning from yesterday's failings or a bit of a tricky leadout for organisation? They lose the lead to the Valcar team at 1,7km. Sierra is still well located but DSM and Jumbo reappearing where it counts, and now here come Trek at 1,3.

Biannic tows Norsgaard back up at the flamme rouge, but they need Biannic to work all the way as it's a headwind. Last corner and Movistar have 3 as Sierra is located on the back - is she in to block or is she preferred today? Norsgaard hits the front and sits up and gets boxed in, but Arlenis is in second wheel, Vos and Balsamo hit the front and Vos wins it, Kool just squeezing between them.

Movistar looked like they couldn't decide on their plan even inside the last kilometre. When Biannic ran out of leadout, Norsgaard soft-pedalled - here I'm not really sure what the ploy was with Sierra, because she was left standing when Vos, Kool and Balsamo launched - if Norsgaard was meant to lead Sierra out then she needed to keep going when Biannic peeled off, but if Norsgaard (who eventually sprinted) was the preferred option then when they hit that last kilometre the Cuban needed to move in front of Norsgaard to lead out, because 500m was far too far to sprint in the headwind. In the head-on shot, Arlenis is looking around for Emma four times so it tells me that the latter was the preferred option, but I think even if she had had the positioning she would probably have struggled to beat that final burst from Merckx. Balsamo couldn't get up to her back wheel and settled for shadowing her, Kool was perfectly in the wheel of Vos, and behind a less experienced campaigner she might have been able to get the win from there, as timing is crucial into a headwind finish. However, we are talking about Marianne Vos here, and she didn't win the eight billion races she has won in her career by luck, so while Kool was closing at the finish, the Cannibal had not given her enough time remaining to close the gap and most of the distance the younger Dutchwoman caught was while Marianne was busy celebrating.
 
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Libertine Seguros

Libertine Seguros

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Samu Cuenca said:
I thought Vos started too early again, but Balsamo didn't have it today. Kool came fast as the end.

Movistar messed it up and left Norsgaard alone at the front way too early.
Click to expand...
Movistar are reminding me of 2010-1 era Sky in the flat stages, a team without too much experience of sprint train work just running out of riders one step too soon. Either Biannic went too hard at the start of the final kilometre for Sierra to get into position, or Sierra either misseed her cue or didn't have the legs to move from running interference behind Norsgaard to leading her out once they were in the final kilometre, and in order to rebuild the position required, Norsgaard had to concede too much momentum too close to the finish to build the speed back up again.
 
Samu Cuenca

Samu Cuenca

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Libertine Seguros said:
Movistar are reminding me of 2010-1 era Sky in the flat stages, a team without too much experience of sprint train work just running out of riders one step too soon. Either Biannic went too hard at the start of the final kilometre for Sierra to get into position, or Sierra either misseed her cue or didn't have the legs to move from running interference behind Norsgaard to leading her out once they were in the final kilometre, and in order to rebuild the position required, Norsgaard had to concede too much momentum too close to the finish to build the speed back up again.
Click to expand...

I guess Norsgaard and Sierra have to work a bit before they get used to each other's ways of riding.

I wonder if it was just because Balsamo won yesterday, they didn't have the top 3 on the podium.

It seems there were splits in the final, but they might neutralised later.
 
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Dk one

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I don’t think Norsgaard is at 100% atm, questionable tactics / lead out aside. I suspected that might the case when she couldn’t follow CUL on the classic style hills at the Danish champs where she was strong in the spring.
 
Samu Cuenca

Samu Cuenca

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Dk one said:
I don’t think Norsgaard is at 100% atm, questionable tactics / lead out aside. I suspected that might the case when she couldn’t follow CUL on the classic style hills at the Danish champs where she was strong in the spring.
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She might have changed her training a bit after the classics, of course, though I still would have expected Cille to be stronger than her on the climbs anyway, but not on the bits in between them.
 
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yaco

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Vos could have won another 20 races if she was more patient in sprint finishes - It's strange to say about someone who has won 241 races.

When there are stage races of more than 7 days, then there should be teams of 7 or more riders.
 
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Samu Cuenca

Samu Cuenca

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Izzyeviel said:
A rest day on a sunday? WTF
Click to expand...

They had to in order to keep it on 10 stages, and not having it on the same day as the Tour is probably not a bad idea. Though the better choice would have been to have had a tougher Sardinia stage today before a rest day tomorrow.

pmcg76 said:
Those have been some long sprints from Vos. Hope there isn't too many more sprint stages.
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There are two certain print stages left. The one to Bergamo can end in a sprint from a smaller group if a breakaway doesn't take it.

yaco said:
When there are stage races of more than 7 days, then there should be teams of 7 or more riders.
Click to expand...

I assume that will happen in the future, if the teams get more riders. 6 is not much, especially not if you, like some teams have experienced here, already lose the first before the race even starts.
 
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