Domenico Pozzovivo appreciation thread

[Lequack]

I'm happy for him, hopefully his Giro goes well.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

2nd in a 3 man sprint today in CoppaBartali

 

[Sciatic]

2nd in a 3 man sprint today in CoppaBartali

Excellent. Wasn’t he generally considered (here) to be a candidate for finishing 3rd in a 2-up sprint? He clearly is upping his game!

 

[RedheadDane]

Excellent. Wasn’t he generally considered (here) to be a candidate for finishing 3rd in a 2-up sprint? He clearly is upping his game!

I think he got fifth in the 2-up sprint once.

 

[Mayomaniac]

Excellent. Wasn’t he generally considered (here) to be a candidate for finishing 3rd in a 2-up sprint? He clearly is upping his game!

From what I read Padun did a leadout for Healy.

 

[Leinster]

From what I read Padun did a leadout for Healy.

The review on Stickybottle.com said Healy did the lead out for Healy and just went for a long one.

Ben Healy takes first pro win after dictating finale in Italy | Video

Irish cyclist Ben Healy of EF Education-EasyPost lets rip on the climb, the move that formed the winning breakaway he won the stage from

www.stickybottle.com

Happy that they’re both hitting some good form.

 

[SafeBet]

Crazy how good he's been the past couple of years a few days after signing a contract.

 

[Andy schleck]

Pozzovivo with 40 years doing this?
The dawg is gonna win the tour 2026. He's getting the hard miles until 2026.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

Pozzovivo with 40 years doing this?
The dawg is gonna win the tour 2026. He's getting the hard miles until 2026.

He finally is pain free and has no injury issues since his crash in 2019, now he's just missing the hard miles, just those really hard miles in the legs now for spring months and he will be strong for le tour.

Pozzo seem to be enjoying himself a lot

 

[Samu Cuenca]

Crazy how good he's been the past couple of years a few days after signing a contract.

Just goes to show that IPT team missed out by not signing him earlier.

 

[Rob5091]

The hopes and dreams of Italy are with you Pozzovivo - do 'em proud!

 

[Gigs_98]

2nd in a 3 man sprint today in CoppaBartali

Gonna tell my kids this is Pozzovivo sprinting at PR.

 

[Tonton]

Vai Domenico Pozzovivo! He's an amazing rider, I hope that the first two ITTs won't cost him too much. I will cheer for him, he's not afraid to attack, he has the heart of a lion. Vai Domenico Pozzovivo!

 

[Sciatic]

Hoping he can pull off his once-per-decade superb TT in one of these . Although honestly I’m just hoping he’ll stay healthy and crash-free so we can see him out in his best on some of the mtn stages.

 

[TourOfSardinia]

ouch +2m10 on day 1

 

[Rob5091]

ouch +2m10 on day 1

Not bad all things considered - I predict a ninja style rise up the GC when the lumpy stuff appears.

 

[Salvarani]

ouch +2m10 on day 1

Gaps were pretty huge yesterday... for a relatively flat 19km ITT.

He lost about 6-7 seconds per km.

I think 3-4, maybe 5, seconds per km would have maybe been more "normal" but whats "normal" these days. Not to be discussed here.

Ignoring the winner of the stage, he lost about a minute or a minute and thirty seconds on many of the other GC-guys who can time trial quite well. That feels more "normal" or as expected.

Pozzovivo is always gonna lose time in the ITTs but he rarely has a bad day and will probably climb in the GC to a top 10 in the end.

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I just hope he gives up the GC ambitions and goes stage hunting instead.

 

[staubsauger]

Gaps were pretty huge yesterday... for a relatively flat 19km ITT.

He lost about 6-7 seconds per km.

I think 3-4, maybe 5, seconds per km would have maybe been more "normal" but whats "normal" these days. Not to be discussed here.

Ignoring the winner of the stage, he lost about a minute or a minute and thirty seconds on many of the other GC-guys who can time trial quite well. That feels more "normal" or as expected.

Pozzovivo is always gonna lose time in the ITTs but he rarely has a bad day and will probably climb in the GC to a top 10 in the end.

He always has a ton of bad days in the last week and falls out of contention.

He had his chance to go for the mountains jersey and stage wins last year. The competition was low and his shape fine enough. Could've won at least 2 stages instead of Bowman & Ciccone. Instead went for GC and tumbled once again.

He always makes the same mistake again. I'm not sorry anymore. He has a wasted career.

 

[Salvarani]

He always has a ton of bad days in the last week and falls out of contention.

He had his chance to go for the mountains jersey and stage wins last year. The competition was low and his shape fine enough. Could've won at least 2 stages instead of Bowman & Ciccone. Instead went for GC and tumbled once again.

He always makes the same mistake again. I'm not sorry anymore. He has a wasted career.

He finished 8th... maybe you dont care about that, but I am sure he does. Finishing top 10 in his home grand tour is probably something he values very highly. To be able to do still ride with some of the best at his age and after a very long career... there is nothing but respect to the guy.

Saying he has a "wasted career" is extremely harsh. Pozzo has always been a good rider and a class act. However, not being very explosive and being a pure climber was never gonna yield in many wins for him. Still he has 13 wins and on many occasions been very close to winning some big races.

Pozzo is a smart guy and could have pursued a different career a long time ago, but continued to ride and doing what he loves. I dont think his career is wasted... I think it is quite beautiful.

 

[staubsauger]

He finished 8th... maybe you dont care about that, but I am sure he does. Finishing top 10 in his home grand tour is probably something he values very highly. To be able to do still ride with some the best at his age and a after very long career... there is nothing but respect to the guy.

Saying he has a "wasted career" is extremely harsh. Pozzo has always been a good rider and a class act. However, not being very explosive and being a pure climber was never gonna yield in many wins for him. Still he has 13 wins and on many occasions been very close to winning some big races.

Pozzo is a smart guy and could have pursued a different career a long time ago, but continued to ride and doing what he loves. I dont think his career is wasted... I think it is quite beautiful.

Yes he does and that's the problem.

He could've archived at least 3-5 mountain jerseys, multiple stage wins and still had finished at the same bottom end of the general classification eventually.

Instead he kept going for that podium spot he never archived and ends up with a bunch of rather useless top 10 placements.

That's a wasted career.

 

[Salvarani]

Yes he does and that's the problem.

He could've archived at least 3-5 mountain jerseys, multiple stage wins and still had finished at the same bottom end of the general classification eventually.

Instead he kept going for that podium spot he never archived and ends up with a bunch of rather useless top 10 placements.

That's a wasted career.

My answer to this is just "no" then. Have a good day.

 

[tobydawq]

Not bad all things considered - I predict a ninja style rise up the GC when the lumpy stuff appears.

How is that not bad?

 

[staubsauger]

My answer to this is just "no" then. Have a good day.

Maybe he surprises us and himself this time around.

With his delayed preparation he might peak in the 3rd week and already be 5-7 minutes behind by Sunday.

He's got Riccitello to join him as partner in crime in breakaways as well.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

He had his chance to go for the mountains jersey and stage wins last year. The competition was low and his shape fine enough. Could've won at least 2 stages instead of Bowman & Ciccone. Instead went for GC and tumbled once again.

He has said multiple times that top 10 on GC is more meaningful to him than a stage win, unless it is a big stage. Maybe that's unusual but it's his perspective.

Especially last year Giro, he specifically said that he wanted to prove he could do a top 10 at 39 and after a couple of extremely bad crashes in the last 4 years. And he did it. That 8th place was quite an important achievement for him (and he could have got 6th or 7th without that mortirolo crash) . So maybe in 2023 he goes for stages. But honestly against guys like Bouwman, ciccone, rota, bargain, covi he is not explosive enough to win stages

Instead he kept going for that podium spot he never archived and ends up with a bunch of rather useless top 10 placements.

A podium was 100 % achievable in 2014, 2015, 2017 and 2018 had things gone differently. Are you really saying that he wasted his carieer because he was ambitious?